Good communication.

Yeah it happens quicker now. Before the patch we would have the tank run straight back. Since the patch we have the tank step up and to the side a bit to avoid knockdown. If the tank dies, whoever is next on the agro list gets promoted (or demoted depending how you look at it)

Other than that its pretty much a tank and spank, cc devils, remove your own curses, fest.

You should ask Intervention. He wrote the guide on it.

Alekx wrote on Nov 14^th, 2010 at 5:34pm:


What specifically were you having problems with, i.e. incoming damage outpacing healing, attacks that one-shot players, spawn waves, etc.?

I have yet to run it on Epic, so I have no solutions, but knowing what the problems are will help me when I do an Epic run.

2 or 3 guys from AM warned me not to even go in there because it was a pot guzzling marathon- I heard someone drank multiple dozens of Majors?  I know you're running this with good players, so I'd like to know if success is a matter of strategy or if it really is just one big clusterfuck.

Pallai wrote on Nov 14^th, 2010 at 11:46pm:



You nailed it right off the bat. Main issues were collateral damage by trash and the massive hits taken by players that were too slow in pulling out when necessary. I also noticed a lot of damage via chain-lightning, thus making a constant refreshment of mass pro necessary. Ring of the Djinn would be a great situational item but with TOD rings taking up most ring slots I doubt people even take this into consideration anymore. Definitely want to bring as much heavy duty DPS as possible and at least 2 solid mages spamming otto's and mass holds on trash.

Quikster wrote on Nov 15^th, 2010 at 12:38am:


This was a first time run-through.

Alekx wrote on Nov 15^th, 2010 at 12:44am:


Cool, thanks- good to know.

I don't play a lot of melee toons, so this may not be practical, but would it be hard to slot a +5/+10 inherent Lightning resist and Greater Lightning resist GS item?  I know people wouldn't want to sacrifice a slot, but let's be honest- you can't DPS when you're dead.  Not that many larges, either.

I was thinking of making GS Lightning resist/absorb items/weapons just for running EOOB (stupid lightning stairs...).  Gives me more incentive now that I've heard this.

Seems to me that the terrain in the Marketplace would present a challenge.  Direct line of sight for too many mobs to aggro on you, they teleport, they're above you...  The one thing I noticed when I started running it on non-Epic was that the mob AI/spawn points have a tendency to spread the melee out, making it harder to utilize masses to heal.

update

After removing pugs (one of them an anonymous pew pew pew ranger) and replacing them with players I knew, the quest was a breeze. We designated a trash team with one stun monk and a pure kensai twf, mages solely dedicated to CC and mass holds on trash. Rest of DPS focused on main boss.

All in all a really fun endgame raid.

moorewr wrote on Nov 18^th, 2010 at 10:01am:


quoted for emphasis

Pallai wrote on Nov 21^st, 2010 at 12:32pm:



Im not a very patient person.

Raincloud wrote on Nov 23^rd, 2010 at 1:04am:



Not sure how having your main tank die twice correlates with things working well.

Did it yesterday and only had to drink 4 pots on my healer would have had to drink less but one of the healers was a fucking tard Vonhelen was his name for those that care.

I think we finally have a solid and viable strategy (after some practice) our last run went perfect with zero pots used.  So I figured I would share...

2 Wizards
1 Bard
3 Divines
2 Monks
4 Generic DPS

Bloodplate


We handled the whole fight in the main hallway into the bank.  Bloodplate was pulled to the door by an HP tank with a dedicated healer and we setup Disco and Web at the mouth of the hallway.  We floated 2 monks and the bard to hunt down the casters. We held and beat down the armors in the hallway.  Hypno/Dance/Hold the archers and devils.   Once the armors and casters go down everyone hops on Bloodplate. When he ports up drop trash devils and archers then lather rinse repeat. Then loot...pretty easy.  Talk to the guy in Phoenix and DDoor back.

Note:

The first couple times we did the Bloodplate fight we tried CC on the right and left ramps heading to the top of the bank.  It worked but it got messy.  Too much Disco made it hard to see and the party got spread out wasting resources and taking longer to drop trash.  It's totally doable even as messy as it was we barely used resources but fighting in the hallway seems much smoother and there was a lot more left in the blue bars.

Razor Arm

We had tried this a few different ways in previous runs...

-Pulling him to the Top level never seemed to work he would either refuse to come or just port away.  The tight confines made things more confused.

- Fighting on the bridge was a mess.  The CC made it difficult to see and the invisible walls blocked heals. (God, forbid you cannot heal over a 2 foot tall pillar.)  Devils and Razor Arm are both dumping damage on the party.  People breaking CC accidentally in the cluster fuck.  People getting blown off which can be devastating if it's the healers.  Too spread out to utilize mass heals effectively.  Just mass chaos...

...so we tried the bottom.  It seems to work best. Everyone jumps down.  Disco and Web on the two ramps, Hypno the archers.  Hold and beat down the devils.  Once the devils are clear, have some one pull Razor Arm.  He takes a while to get there because he tries ranging and tossing fireballs but if you hide under the bridge he can't do squat and eventually makes it down.  Beat on him till he ports up to a pipe.  Repeat the Disco, Web, Hypno, Hold, Kill Devils.  Grab Razor Arm again he will have regened some HP.  Beat on him.  You should be able to get him down to a sliver before he ports.  Just chase him down and finish him.  Clean up the leftovers.


Voltron

Part 1 - 5 Abishai

We have a caster pop a Disco or CK on the stage and kite the Abishai.  Obv. works best with a WF caster but a fleshie would work.  Pull them off one at a time and kill. Very simple.

Part 2 - Big Abishai

Someone hit on it earlier but the key is an improved evasion tank who can swallow the breath attacks.  We had a WF monk which worked perfect because we could throw a caster in to help heal. Outside the breath attacks this guy is just a giant bag of HP. The tank grabs agro and pulls the Abishai into the corner formed by the barrier right where you zone in.  This should keep the focused breath attacks on him and away from the party.  It also presents the rear for the party to attack same basic strategy as Horruth or Sally.  The killer for us in previous runs was the party getting too spread out when trash spawned and requiring all sorts of single heals wasting resources.  So when trash spawned the whole party minus the tank attacked trash.  We had a couple disco balls and webs on the ramp supplemented by mass holds.  The whole party focused on one devil at a time in one area so mass heals could maximize resource usage.  The trash seems to spawn in timed waves.  Once the trash is down, back on the boss.  We has someone calling out dragon form so that people knew when to bail out.  It can be difficult to see the shift from certain angles when you are in tight.  The same person called out which damage type it was vulnerable too and melees switched weapons to maximize damage output.  It took three trash rounds but the healers all still had juice in the tank when we finished. It went shockingly well compared to prior efforts.

Notes:

All 5 resists and FOM are a must.  We throw a full buff then run up and use the shrine in the Rusty Nail which is pretty much a freeby.

General Notes:

We had 2 deaths total.  One caster who got a bit a head of the party and ate a fireball from an Abishai followed by a chain lightning, ouchy.  One melee got caught in the Ice crystals on the final fight. 

There are enough shrines (4) to easily keep a full raid buff on the party for each boss fight.  Acid, Cold, Fire and Electric resists mitigate a fair amount of damage.

The trash in the marketplace are meaningless minus the flying Abishai getting jumped by two of them can be a wipe before you start.  I have also seen them get in places where they can fireball the party but you cannot get them.  Hold and manyshot are your friend to knock them to the ground. Everyone should have at least some ranged attack.  The casters can be nasty too but are easily neutralized by Otto's. Hypno works well on the rest of the trash.  (I love Archmage.)  As long as you go slow and stay together this should be a walk in the park.

The group that did this for the most part have been raiding together for 3 months.  Knowing each other and being able to count on where and what people will do is a big plus obv. Healers who know how to time each other and use unquickened mass heal.  Melees that can work as a team.   (I may be biased here as I hate pugs but I pity anyone trying this with a true pug.)  If you have knuckleheads who cannot attack the same target and break Hypno everywhere you will be hating life. 

As we get more comfortable the party composition could be changed to bring more DPS.

Casters need to have a good Enchantment DC, Obv.

_____________________________________

We blew through pots like sailors on shore leave on the first few attempts till we locked down this strategy.  I hope this helps anyone who is trying the raid.  Overall, now that we have this it is a fun and challenging raid.  Prior to this our healers were ready to revolt.  We are gonna run a few more with the exact same party to see if there are any flaws or hiccups we may have missed or if we got lucky but I am fairly confident that this will hold up under testing.

Had much success using SoP on all the tiefling trash in bloodplate fight. fuck disco balls