Me vs. Shimmering: 0-Lots

[pgcd]

I've spent the last few ingame days trying to kill the Shimmering Effusion with my sampire and... well, let's say it didn't go very well. Actually it was so bad that I ran out of money to insure my stuff - and I had around 800k in bank.
Keying isn't a problem (today I managed to get the whole set in 20 minutes or so, thanks to some RNG luck) - the problem is the Effusion itself.
I have tried several tactics and all the feint-enabled weapons I have, with the best result obtained with a 100% fire tessen, that took the Eff to around 5% health before it disappeared out of sheer boredom. The absolute worst result has been a 100% fire daisho, that I tried both wearing anatomy and spirit speak (I'm a Connorist) - half health for the Eff, roughly 50 deaths for me.
So far, I think there are at least two critical issues that cause whatever tactics to fail:
1) High ping - I normally ping between 140 and 200 ms, thanks to a crappy DSL; this, along with my very average reflexes, means that I can react around a full tick after the event - seeing as the Eff happily casts 5 flamestrikes in 5 ticks, the outcome can't be so good.
2) Sadly, my beloved EC doesn't seem up to the task - first of all, dragging the healthbars for fetid essences etc is stupidly hard thanks to the models' offset; second, and worse, when I die there is a full second freeze (thanks to the fade to gray, i suppose) that makes it almost impossible for me to save my swampie. And once the swampie's dead, well, those flamestrikes start hitting for 70ish damage...

Any ideas? Suggestions?
Oh, yeah, I also tried wraith form - will try again with a tessen, because the leafblade doesn't work for me.

 

[Ender]

And once the swampie's dead, well, those flamestrikes start hitting for 70ish damage...

Flamestrike damage is the same with or without a swamp dragon.

 

[pgcd]

Flamestrike damage is the same with or without a swamp dragon.

That's what I thought as well, but there is a definite decrease in my survivability once the dragon is dead - I'll take a closer look at the numbers next time, maybe I'm just being paranoid.
Anyway - since the Eff damage seems mostly magical, would that mean that the dragon is nearly useless? Or is the actual melee attack more frequent than it looks?

 

[Freelsy]

Ping is a big deal as well. It's hard to do anything in this game with nearly 200 ping. Your slow reaction time coupled with an already slow connection just equals death against the higher monsters.

 

[Stupid Miner]

... It's been a while since i've fought the Effusion (and lost ), only done it once. Can't remember if he casts Necromancy as well. If he does, pay close attention to whether he Corpse Skins you, that will increase Fire Damage received by 50%, so remove it as soon as possible, or over-stack on fire.

 

[pgcd]

I'm still trying and still failing - lag and EC really do have an effect, though.
Anyway, I was about to finally kill it (15% health left or something), when I got killed. Kill some wisps to recover mana, nasty wisp in the corner behind the exit moontate, I close in for the kill... and step in the moongate. No warning, nothing - back on the first floor, and that's it.
I seriously, honestly think this is the MOST ANNOYING thing ever, and I can see no reason for it - when you leave from DH island you are in a danger zone and you get the "are you sure" popup - at the shim you're in a safe zone, and there's no warning whatsoever.
Grr.

 

[Chyna of Sonoma]

I close in for the kill... and step in the moongate. No warning, nothing - back on the first floor, and that's it.
I seriously, honestly think this is the MOST ANNOYING thing ever, and I can see no reason for it - when you leave from DH island you are in a danger zone and you get the "are you sure" popup - at the shim you're in a safe zone, and there's no warning whatsoever.
Grr.

i have done that several times with Grizzle by walking out the front door by accident. Makes you never want to waste the time to go back.

 

[pgcd]

I'm happy to announce the "0" in the title should now become "1" - I finally managed to solo the Effing Shimmerusion.
If anybody's interested, here's the breakdown:

I went down with wraith form (75ish spirit speak) and Macing, using a 50% cold, 50% fire tessen with high HML and HSL and, here's the difference, high HLD (even if I have it on the M&S glasses as well). My reasoning is that in that context, HLD is more effective than either HCI or HLA, because I am mostly attacking a single enemy and I really really need to be able to hit it when feinting.
Of course, HLD has a disadvantage over HCI: you NEED to hit the Effing at least once before it kicks in, which leads to all sort of funny deaths.
Oh, speaking about deaths: I don't know if it's standard but those wisps are karma-neutral, so they're excellent to recover mana after a dirtnap.


The strategy is mostly the one depicted in the famous wammy video on youtube, with a significant difference: I died a lot more, and every time I died I supercharged with 50% EP str and dex potions, that helped a bit.
The idea is to get into a rhythm: 1 feint, 3 LS when the Effing is alone; 1 feint, 3 Momentum strikes when the other blobs spawn.
It works rather well, with two caveats: in wraith form you absolutely need to remember to cast Curse Weapons, since there is no hint whatsoever that it's expired, except a ludicrously un-noticeable sound. This means you need to integrate it in your rhythm, and that's not exactly easy.
The second problem is that Fetid Essences etc tend to run away when low on health - but they keep on hitting you with spells. BTW, this was how I died most of the time.

After some pounding (mutual), the Effing ran out of mana, but kept on spawning stuff. Wraith form became a lot less effective, so I went vampire, jumped on my swampie (that had been usefully distracting the blobs every once in a while) and finished the Effing - and there was much rejoicing. Except it had no ring or crimmy or anything else, natch.

 

[Stupid Miner]

Oh, fun trick for getting the Spawned Fetids out of the way. Have some extra pets with, you spare swampies are useful, but anything works. Get them in the Ankh area and tell they to stay near the wall, and get the Fetid to attack it. Hide if you have to, to do this.
And the extra spawn is no longer a problem.

 

[Baghdaddy1]

I was able to solo shimmering a few times on my sampire 3 years ago. Ornate all the way with some likely RNG luck using evasion. In the end, the battle was way too long and I only did it at the time to say it was possible.

Shimmering was the hardest peerless for me to defeat, all the others were pretty managable with the right tactics. I would imagine some of the new SA bosses are harder but I kind of retired my sampire and only go to the abyss to collect imbuing ingreds so I will just hang out here and read ya'lls posts.