Maybe it's just the way that I am but I always am in search for new and interesting ways to do old things. After hearing my friends/forums woes about how the jump back and forth adds a huge risk of death, I asked myself : "Maybe there is a way..."

Well one thing led to another, and after 2 4x player debugging on NM non-HC I found it. There is a safe spot on the battlecruiser during it's instant kill.

Is it worth doing this method? Probably not as a melee since you still will need to jetjump but as a high DPS ranged, it is probably the easiest and safest way to kill the goblin ship.


Also I did not check the official DD forums for something similar to this but if someone already has figured this out and uploaded it, let me know and I will give proper credits to them.

To be honest, as long as your build can hold out no problem then I suppose most characters can utilize the no-return method.

Ranged - Any character will work. How quickly you kill depends on the dmg of your weapon along with your character boost (if applicable).

Melee - I strongly recommend characters that are either extremely fast or have a skill boost that will increase their speed.
Jesters have the highest movement speed, so if you decide to use a melee weapon instead of a ranged I would recommend them.
Barbarians can do this with their tornado stance however as a safety net I would recommend using the Amazon outfit.
Although untested Countess with Call to Arms may also be an option, I personally have never used my countess outside of a builder so I can't confirm.
Same goes to Squire's Bloodrage, if this increases speed it may be an option but I have always used a countess for building so I do not know if BR will increase Squire's speed.

Upon the initial jump, land on the front grill where the flames shoot from and you are already in the safe zone.



As long as you are standing on the grill the instant kill will not kill you.

The next thing we will discuss is the difference in how a ranged and melee will DPS the boss.

As a Ranged you can actually stand on the roof of the ogre/dew spawn and pick off the crystal, just make sure that you are behind the first line (stay in the back 66% of the roof).



If you move forward from this spot you will fall through and will need to boost back up as a melee char will need to.

As a melee you will need to DPS the crystal and then use the front jet to jump back onto the grill area. As it is difficult to show with screenshots, please refer to the videos in the next section.

Here are the videos, the first one is done with a Jester as I fail miserably with my barb I demonstrate the ranged sniper location until the first instant kill and then I follow up with the kill by demonstrating what a Melee character would have to do.


This 2nd video is my return melee attempt as a Barb (Amazon outfit) to demonstrate how a true melee DPS would have to do this. I do add a bonus to show it is possible with the tavernkeep outfit but it does make it slightly difficult as he is slower.

This isn't a great overall solution to the problematic unlucky death by return on the sky city boss but it is a pretty fun method and I highly recommend giving it a shot. If you and a friend are unable to kill the boss have one repair and one go on a ranged sniping. It may take an hour to kill but you know you will kill.

My other guides