The intended way to beat Vorac?

So I’m searching for a more secure way to beat Vorac and farm some Interfacers. Currently what I’m doing is killing the Chief with Trespasser and then killing Vorac with a DPUH/Grog, Sheriffs badge, a crappy corrosive immunity shield and Legendary Gunzerker COM.
(Before someones asking: I tried a perfect fire Interfacer with Deputys badge, and still feel DPUH dishes out more damage.)

Now I would like to know: What is actually the intended way to kill Vorac? All attempts to try and find a tutorial ended up in cheap skill abuse or out of bounds Vorac kills. No actual tutorial on how this boss works and what the Chief is doing, how to prevent it, and how not randomly die on Voracs novas, like I like to do.
And is the intended way faster or safer with Sal than getting Vorac enraged by killing the Chief?

1 Like

From way back when I first tried Vorac, one of the things advised was, oddly enough, “Keep the chief alive”. I think the idea was that you’d whittle Vorac down while the chief had the shield, and keeping the chief alive when he transferred the shield kept Vorac from going super-aggro. Of course, keeping the chief alive while Vorac is trying to hump your leg AND all those other dudes keep swarming in like it’s RibFest, is tricky (especially solo).

4 Likes

I believe the intention with Vora’s design was actually for him to kill solo players. We weren’t supposed to be able to put him down, alone.

4 Likes

Well yes, but that’s true of all the raid bosses!

2 Likes

I feel that instead of fixing the multiple broken, glitchy things in the game, the Devs assumed you would use one or more of them and so just cranked up the RB’s health to crazy levels and cranked up the difficulty with unblockable Novas and such. IMHO, the challenge of RB’s come from figuring out which broken set of gear/items/cheap tactic to use on them. Some people enjoy this challenge, as you can see in all the cool speed kills online, but I don’t much to be honest.

2 Likes

Luckily that’s not how it is, even if he’s still the hardest to kill; I’d be really sad to be forced into multiplayer to enjoy every fight the game offers.

Anyway, I don’t know if keeping the Chief alive would make things easier: that jerk likes to zap you when you’re already low on health; more on that, as VaultHunter said, it’s really difficult to keep him alive and distracting too.
Just Trespass the hell out of him and take on angry Vora like a man. With Sal it isn’t really difficult to survive his novas, anyway.

About the Interfacer: I think it’s not as easy to use it in the right way as one can imagine; it’s got a learning curve.

1 Like

Slight tweak on the start:

3 Likes

They intended people kill vorac?

Not sure about that lol.

2 Likes

@Handsome_Dad’s video kept stalling for me, but I’ll assume it showed a successful way to deal with him :acmwink:

On the whole and for most characters, taking out the chief at the start is my preferred tactic as well, and I believe most players of my acquaintance do the same. The exception is Gaige, at least for the tactics I run.

That said, it kinda stands to reason that going through one or several shield cycles is how GBX envisioned the fight. Mind you, back when Vorac was first enticed to leave his comfy pit in one of the nethermost Hells the level cap was 50, and we could do substantial damage to the shield in both phases.

On OP levels, both the chief and the midgets pose enough of a threat in themselves that it’s not worth the hassle to go through the shield cycles, IMO. There’s also the slight problem with less than stellar design - by keeping the chief alive we have more midget spawns and thus more second-wind fodder, but the first thing that happens when they catch a DOT even from his regular attacks is that they run for the hills.

Aside from this, babysitting the chief in his shield-less state is simply too risky when both he and the midgets can easily down you while the chief isn’t tanky enough to withstand even a single stray bullet.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that there’s a reason this raid is considered the most RNG-laden one in the game. Vorac seems to suffer from serious mood swings, where his enraged phase can be filled to overflowing with leaps and bites - or he can be downright lethargic and just spam his novas and the occasional tail spike, with only a token leap now and then to show he could snuff you if he could be bothered.

Take out the chief first thing, is my advice, and hang in there till you get the timing of his novas down. The first one in particular has very little in the way of telegraphing, while the second is consistent in relation to the first.

On a side note, as Sal you might benefit from swapping between a Heartbreaker and a Grog in your off hand since it’ll increase your DPS while providing enough healing to keep you safe.
Leg Gunzerker or Monk is a matter of taste, you can usually stay alive with Harold-Grog swaps during the Monk’s cooldown while potentially (Moneyshot RNG willing) getting much higher DPS.

Getting your Harold-Grog swaps down to second nature is also good practice for fighting him as characters who aren’t blessed with relative immortality.
Maya, for instance, can usually finish this fight quicker, but she is not allowed even one single mistake :acmsad:

4 Likes

For most Salvador raiding I tend to switch between grog and slag lady fist in the offhand when the harold clip is nearing empty for crit boosted money shot chains.

It can be a bit risky for Vorac though since he can keep you below healthgate almost perpetually, but it’s a neat trick if you can get the timing down.

1 Like

I also Would like to see how it is intended by gearbox vorac to be defeated.

I have taken a break at Borderlands 2 because of frustration on killing him solo with maya, axton, gaige and even krieg (im bad at bloodsplosion). Only killed him using sal an Zero with CA stacks.

After im done in revisiting new haven (B1) will go back to sanctuary (B2).

1 Like

Oh yes, standard fare for Sal, but it depends a lot on Vorac’s current mood. He’ll frequently do the ‘stalker creep’ for fairly long periods even of his enraged phase, but getting close enough to reliably crit leaves you open to a combination of his bite attack followed by the jump/melee one. This is unhealthy.

It’s also very common to strafe sideways in the hopes of evading his tail spikes or for that matter jumping frequently to throw his AI off a bit. All of the above combined makes it pretty hard to consistently score crits, in my experience.

Guess it depends on how brave you are - personally I embrace cowardice against Vorac, he’s nasty enough as it is.

4 Likes

Yep, from what I understand, he was supposed to be the one that put a halt to all the soloing shenanigans.

As a Zer0 player, I’ve never come up with anything but glitching under the map and CA stacking on a Gallant Scaylion.

2 Likes

I’m sure you know of Striker, Nerf PhysX and Bore, just mentioning them here since their melee kills of OP8 Vorac are perfect for anyone wanting to study the timing of the novas.
That’s required knowledge for every class, but IMO it’s easier to see during a Zer0 kill, possibly because the viewer isn’t half-blind from muzzle flash :acmwink:

The test of mastery for melee Zer0 is to get the kill without throwing his decoy into a wall to mess with Vorac’s AI. Not easy, but these players demonstrated it was doable a couple of years ago.

2 Likes

Vora’s design is interesting to me. While there are some things that we could call out as flaws, the event stands as one of the most definitive challenges in the game. It manages to be soloable, without being so readily so that even top tier players will be guaranteed to put him down reliably on any given attempt. That is a difficult thing to accomplish, from a design standpoint.

I’ve done it with Sal, of course, but in my… dozen or so (?) attempts with each of Zero, Maya, and Axton, I have only locked into the routine of it long enough to get him around 75% with Axton. Inexplicably, every attempt I’ve made with Maya, he goes into a biting frenzy, and won’t get off me. With Zero and Axton, I’ve been able to create some degree of separation to begin working with.

2 Likes

Since we are talking about the intended way to beat him can anyone explain his mechanics. I’ve honestly never really bothered with this guy so I don’t know a lot about him.

The midgets disappear if you kill the chief, right? Is the chiefs shield switching on a timer or is it based on Vora’s life? Vora also aggros when he is low on health even if chief is still alive, I think? Or perhaps he has just died on accident around there…

I’d appreciate a little breakdown of what is actually going on in this fight. Maybe I’ll go try fighting him myself later, should be a nice change of pace from all the peak running.

1 Like

This I definitely noticed last night when I went to kill him a couple times. During one round, he would NOT stay off me and chewed me to pieces and I died, and when I re-entered the arena for a rematch he was downright mellow, just kinda wandering around with the occasional leap and it was easy to pile the crits on.

Also, my hat’s off to anyone who can solo him with anyone other than Sal. He’s the only one I can kill him with on UVHM. I just use the tried and true Trespass-Chief/Grog-DPUH Vora and keep my fingers crossed. :wink: I got him in TVHM with Axton in a co-op game once, but that was it. I’m too scared to try with anyone else, lol. :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Actually Bloodsplosion with Krieg is so far the “easiest” way I’ve killed Vorac. Depending on V’s mood, I can do him with Axton ( 1 kill to 5 deaths and a severely depleted bank account ).

4 Likes

I know this is an old thread and forgive me for resurrecting it but i found a clip of the intended way (keeping the chief alive and not aggroing vorac) to kill vorac.

This is the first time i see vorac killed this way.

4 Likes

Another kill from theonepunk

Let me quote what he said to me.

"The whole fight revolves around keeping the chief alive. If he dies anytime, voracidous gains he true power.

So every time the stalker has the shields, midgets spawn who’ll try to hurt and kill the chief, kill them first. Avoid any grenades during this time of area effect weapons like norfleet. Team should only focus on voracidous.

Whenever he doesn’t have shields go crazy on him.

Once voracidous has 10% health. He’ll kill the chief himself whatever shields the chief has will be transferred to vora. Up to this point you can go ham."

4 Likes