Evasion vs Kitava Question

I'm running a high Evasion w/ Dodge build, which is admittedly lower on life than I would like (I just reached the Scion life cluster a level or two back, and I could use more life on my gear), though I'm not sure another 1K life would have mattered very much.

I got to the Act 10 Kitava fight last night, and I ended up having to brute force myself through most of it. I've got most of the patterns down, though a few can be difficult to discern (looks like he's going left, goes right). Still, with everything Kitava throws at you being physical, with a bit of fire, and it doesn't seem like you can evade/dodge any of it (outside of literally moving out of the way, or not walking on the corrupted ground, which I'm mostly OK with), so I'm not sure what strategy an Evasion character is supposed to use here.

I'm not trying to face-tank or anything, just wondering what I could have done differently. I ended up using Decoy to gather and kill the Heralds, then run in and get 2-3 hits on Kitava before backing out and waiting for another opening while keeping Decoy active. Even still, those Heralds kept bombarding me, and those are physical as well. It took forever, and even then I'd get screwed by that slow moving corruption blob thing moving into the only open spot on the platform.

I guess I could have brought in a few Granite Flasks, and port to town every 15 seconds for refills, but that seems like a really lame strat. :) This is the first time I've ran an Evasion-heavy character in this fight, which is why I was so caught off guard.

Any friendly advice would be welcome. I'd like to retry this fight a few times to see if I can improve my performance on it.

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On a side note, I noticed that the Raider's Onslaught buffs to Evasion (Avatar of the Chase) do not apply to your character's Evasion stat on the Character Screen. Anyone know if this is a bug, or just how it works?
Last bumped on Aug 15, 2018, 9:33:18 AM
After having played quite a few evasion characters I've come to this conclusion (there may be something I'm missing so don't take this as final):

Most evasion characters require high mobility in general, and this is extremely important for defenses (whirling blades/high movespeed)

Leech anything that doesn't 1shot you that you can't dodge (his fire attack). Either get more leech or more damage to make this happen.

Vaal grace. 'nuf said. (for things that evasion/dodge works on)

Jade flask (↑see above↑)

Kite his minions around during his minion phases. Focus more on staying out of mechanics than on killing him/killing the heart. Leech from the minions and take as long as you need, but circle kite for days.

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actually with dodge/eva (mostly dodge) toons and enfeeble (you can put it to manual curse although you have to do on each phase), Ive found kitava is usually a cakewalk

you just need a large pool and either some leech or regen for your mistakes (or flask, but then if you make a lot of mistakes you have to tp out)

yes, youd want a granite or basalt (I prefer basalt but granite has more uses unless you get a perfectly rolled one)

whats your hp like ?
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CycloneJack wrote:
On a side note, I noticed that the Raider's Onslaught buffs to Evasion (Avatar of the Chase) do not apply to your character's Evasion stat on the Character Screen. Anyone know if this is a bug, or just how it works?

They dont change your evasion so them not applying to it isnt a bug.
If they dont apply to the estimated chance to evade I would consider it a bug. Some GGG people and their followers may have a different opinion on it though.
No wonder it's lost, it's in the middle of the jungle!
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grepman wrote:
actually with dodge/eva (mostly dodge) toons and enfeeble (you can put it to manual curse although you have to do on each phase), Ive found kitava is usually a cakewalk

you just need a large pool and either some leech or regen for your mistakes (or flask, but then if you make a lot of mistakes you have to tp out)

yes, youd want a granite or basalt (I prefer basalt but granite has more uses unless you get a perfectly rolled one)

whats your hp like ?


I'm 2878/52, which, like I said, is a bit lower than I would like. I just hit the Scion life cluster, so this should go up a bit over the next few levels. I currently have +134% Life from the tree, which should hit +164% once I finish the Scion cluster. I do need to replace my Gloves, and I'm due for some Ring upgrades, I just haven't had any good luck there yet.

73% Evasion (26040 EV Rating; without Onslaught buffs)
43% Dodge Attacks
44% Dodge Spells
L16 Enfeeble on L17 Blasphemy
2% Life Leech +180% Life Leech Modifier w/ Vaal Pact
i dunno - i still and basically have always thought evasive(don't read EVASION, but EVASIVE) characters are the best defensively in the game.

you do need decent mobility to still get out of the way of boss mechanics which cannot be dodged/evaded.
outside of that, make sure you're still able to run fortify and whatnot. i also would never recommend vaal pact, personally. i think it gimps you too hard for its effect currently.

i never have an issue with kitava anymore, but you should definitely be looking to get out of the way of all his attacks. evasion/dodge and stuff work wonders vs his ads, which are the most dangerous part of the fight. they can get absolutely insane, and running IR for instance and getting hit every time is a recipe for death.

by your numbers im not sure how you're having any issue at all.
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xMustard wrote:
i dunno - i still and basically have always thought evasive(don't read EVASION, but EVASIVE) characters are the best defensively in the game.

you do need decent mobility to still get out of the way of boss mechanics which cannot be dodged/evaded.
outside of that, make sure you're still able to run fortify and whatnot. i also would never recommend vaal pact, personally. i think it gimps you too hard for its effect currently.

i never have an issue with kitava anymore, but you should definitely be looking to get out of the way of all his attacks. evasion/dodge and stuff work wonders vs his ads, which are the most dangerous part of the fight. they can get absolutely insane, and running IR for instance and getting hit every time is a recipe for death.

by your numbers im not sure how you're having any issue at all.

all on point- except his hp is way too low for a10 kitava imo. 2.8k is just a tad too low for any toon as one mistake vs telegraphed hit is death. I dont do him with less than 3500 hp and in hc on a non-block squishy toon I probably want 4k minimum

I do think vp doesnt make that much of a difference at that point as well, rather have some regen.


last time Ive had problem vs kitava on an evasion toon it was a ssfhc deadeye pre-deadeye buff, where I leveled with bows and couldnt get a good bow for a bit. I tried the fight and felt like I wasnt quite ready (no leech, just acro/evasion and ~3.8k life and shitty dps) I ended up farming for a half-decent bow, got something like 4.8k life then respecced into the duelist leech nodes and then it was ez peazy
is he on HC? doesn't mention it

i've done act 10 kitava with quite a bit less than 2.8k hp a number of times before, but its more my goal to do it without any deaths. 2800-3200 is my aimed bracket. but at that time i have my optimal weapon, typically, so the dps is so insane that the fight is a breeze anyway.
Evades fine until you come across physical spells, I used to be a big fan of evade but I soured on it from about perandus league onwards as they started to introduce more and more phys spells and it only takes a few to really wreck your day.

this league for example phase acrobatics is the bomb because it helps you deal with the plantpot salvos in incursions but without it your just asking for a rip.

Its one of those things that's complicated to boil down to a simple answer but its like high armour/phys reduc > high evade > moderate evade > moderate armour > low evade > low armour.

Kitava though is entirely about manual dodging, If you consider him like a 180 degree arc I always find you want to be at 60 or 120, this lets you bait out attacks and switch to the other position the only difficulty comes because he generally blocks one of these spots with his blood vortex thing. Stick at it once you've done it on a speedy evade character you'll actually find it translates well over to your regular characters, dodging telegraphs completely is always the best form of defence.
phys spells do hurt, but as an evasive char you must have spell avoidance as well, and still some phys reduction by means of fortify and immortal call and the like.

in end game it's majority going to be spells that kill you anyway, which is why phase acro is so damn strong, which makes evasive chars so strong by proxy

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