Barad Guldur - Discussion

[Raedwulf]

There is now an embryo guide up. This is the accompanying discussion thread (duh!).

I'll start it by saying Durchest HM - my guess is that what is going to happen here is that killing off his extra 5 guards is going to give him a much bigger Soul Reap effect. Instead of healing himself for @100K, he's going to get 2 or 3 times as much back. There's also the possibility that the next 5 guards may be somewhat tougher than the first lot. Beyond that, I wouldn't anticpate anything being more difficult than it already is. with any luck it'll be do what we already do, just for longer!

We will find out soon, because the next raid will be trying for HM on the first attempt. If it goes badly, we'll revert to EM for that run, so that we can push on. He's still a tough enough fight that I don't want to get hung up there for too long when we know we can kill him.

[Fanna]

Just a quick check for me as I missed last run.

Only 5 guards spawn by themselves or did you kill him before all 10 spawned (making HM about keeping him alive for a really long time)? If only 5 spawn can you choose when to spawn the other 5, did you try something around that yet?
What about his dps that went up the roof? Did you end up kiting him or just put a ton of healing on the tank?
We had some problems with distributed damage before (7k damage=insta kill), did you get away from that by kiting (see last question) or by putting everyone on him?
Last time I went in there was some talk about putting two tanks on him due to the aggro wipe, was that the winning recipe or did you do something else as well?

[Raedwulf]

This'll all go into the guide when I get time to write it up, but...

We did the Smelly tank thing, one on either side till the aggro settled down. Whoever had the aggro kited him when a guard came in. Five guards come of their own accord. I'm told there are levers in the room to summon the other 5, but I'm too busy watching 14 other things to have managed to spot where they are! We didn't try summoning any, being more concerned with just getting him dead for the first time. Nevertheless, the last portion of the fight (i.e. after the last of the spawned guards dies) is lengthy, so we should have plenty of time to summon & kill the other 5.

The kiting may have snuffed the distributed damage completely (which is probably why we found it so much easier). What was probably more germane was the fact that, instead of one LM who is also the RL, we had 2 LM's & an RK, so his corruptions never got a chance to stack up, and I think that was probably the difference.

If we're going to do it with one LM (which has been tried), he needs to be kited past the MNS so they can use Herlad's (sic - Helm's brother! ;)) Hammer on him to help keep the corruptions down. When we're actually fighting him, as opposed to a guard, I can relax on the anti-corruptions, since everyone else can use theirs. In all other respects I can manage the raid as a solo LM and lead on top, but the anti-corruption is a 30s CD and Durchest's build quicker than 3 per 30s, so I can't keep them down when kiting.

[Fanna]

Sounds straight forward enough, thanks for the fill in Raed :)

Fanna

[Derigar/Tarinas]

Curtosy of our friendly neighborhood Black-axe

[Grimbos]

Any word on Mob damage resistances? Can I stick to my beleriand stuff?

[Haleabor]

I'm intrigued by the Main Raid set up this week...not much dps, but lots of healing and I;m assuming you want lots of IHW and LS?

Spill the beans!!

Hal

[Raedwulf]

One word: Anti-corruption. That's the reason for the 2 BRGs. And yes I know the range limitation, but I've still only one LM, plus the RK. When we downed Dur, we had 2 LM & RK. I'm keen on having some extra 3x anti-corruption available. After that, it was a question of 2nd GRD, HNT, or CPT. We usually do 2nd HNT as a rule, we've started off in BG with 2 GRD (and even 2 GRD plus WDN), so I know how that works in there. I thought I'd see how 3 CPT changes things. Plus it means Sigrorn gets a chance to have a look at the place, otherwise I'd likely have left him out in favour of Hiri & Ari.

[Eiyja]

We did the Smelly tank thing, one on either side till the aggro settled down. Whoever had the aggro kited him when a guard came in.

The kiting may have snuffed the distributed damage completely (which is probably why we found it so much easier). What was probably more germane was the fact that, instead of one LM who is also the RL, we had 2 LM's & an RK, so his corruptions never got a chance to stack up, and I think that was probably the difference.


some things I want to add/comment on this fight. Last and only time we killed him one champion (Oderid it was I think?) always stayed on Durch when the GRD who was not tanking went to grab the add. I think that was a good "safety net" and something we need to keep doing since he a couple of times did switch agro even during kiting. So Id suggest whenever it is add-time the tanking GRD+ one champ stays on Durch while the rest of the raid goes to kill the add. While Durch is being kited its good to have the other remaining player there to taunt incase he descides to make one of his agro switches. The other reason for why I think it should be (always the same) one CHM together with the GRD to tank/kite Durch is to ensure that the top 3 on his agro list are 2*GRD and that one CHM. I think it helps a lot in the fight if the one CHM is up there too since Durch seems to randomly put -30% agro debuffs on the melee people who are hitting him.

Also I noticed that sometimes during (what I assume is) phase1 he does some kind of fire spell (was too busy to check debuff icon to see the name of it) on the raid and it was not removable with woundpotion. So the MNS should maybe use their fire resist song when that happens?

And finally I do believe this fight is the easiest if dps goes veeeryyy slllooooww the first couple of minutes on Durch (with exception of the one CHM who should always be on Durch together with the GRDs) (not slow dps on the adds tho.. they should be nuked down asap).

Thats what I think/believe about this.. any comments?

[Hirion]

Any word on Mob damage resistances? Can I stick to my beleriand stuff?
You will find wargs, men, and goblins/Orcs - for which Beleriand is not particular good (nor bad) though often offset by many having the Hero of Caras Galadhon Beleriand + Orc Slayer.

The bosses however, and several other enemies are counted amoung the Dead, which would make me recommend Westernesse to main DPS weapons - or possibly the Beleriand + Dead Slayer from Gathburz.

[Derigar/Tarinas]

I'm fairly certain the fire was linked to the flaming enemy he summoned to help kill us/touch up the wallpaper. When he died, the flame disappeared, so its probably not something you can interrupt; either heal through it or increase DPS to limit the effect. Its moments like these that i find having a second songbook with 'ballad of flame fire resist' on helps, its a fairly significant boost to a typically rock-bottom defence stat.

[Hurakan]

The bosses however, and several other enemies are counted amoung the Dead, which would make me recommend Westernesse to main DPS weapons - or possibly the Beleriand + Dead Slayer from Gathburz.

I was wondering wheather to go for Beleriand + Dead or Westernesse and I settled for Westernesse, the reason I did this is because Westernesse is good not only against the dead, but also the unseen (I believe the Nazgul will count as unseen).
Does anybody know for sure though whether:
1. Beleriand + Dead would do more damage than Westenesse on the Dead?
2. Beleriand + Unseen would do more damage than Westernesse on Unseen?
Anyway Westernesse looks like the best bet to me for this raid overall.

[Hirion]

I guess in an ideal situation we would all have a scroll case with us to change back and forth in media res - I don't know which is better but would have a vague suspicion that it might be the Westernesse - s for scrolls I think I lean toward the Beleriand + Dead or Unseen, simply because the Beleriand is the main damage against bosses in the other two raids around, Vile Maw and DN, keeping me from swapping around too much.

[Hurakan]

I lean toward the Beleriand + Dead or Unseen, simply because the Beleriand is the main damage against bosses in the other two raids around, Vile Maw and DN, keeping me from swapping around too much.

Vile Maw and DN I use light oils which solves the issue with swapping for me as well :)

[Hirion]

Vile Maw and DN I use light oils which solves the issue with swapping for me as well :)
Both of which does less damage on Ancient Evil in general.

[Hurakan]

Both of which does less damage on Ancient Evil in general.

Yes, but light offers more damage to Trolls and Orcs and there are a bunch of them in DN, as well as the miss chance debuff which I would not ignore.

Anyway I think my last couple of posts should be deleted as I went a bit off topic sorry for that.

Let's conclude that either of Westernesse, Beleriand + Dead or Beleriand + Unseen (In this order :p) is a good choice for BG.

[Baro]

Thoughts and hunches:

I have a hunch the spawns we get going up the gauntlet are not totally random, to me it feels like each time we pass a treshold for a new corner we spawn something coming at us from the front. The back feels more timed. I think we can control this pretty good by timing the spawns from behind and watching where we trigger new spawns from up front. Would avoid us getting swarmed.

Fighting the uruks is something that pisses me of sometimes because of their aoe attack. I think we need to work out a better way to fight them when they come in pairs. My suggestion would be to rather have the tank in front grab one uruk + one warg, and the tank behind grabbing the same instead of separating the wargs and the uruks. The problem with 2 uruks on the same spot is that more or less only the Guardian (with full Morale) can withstand 2 aoe's if they come close. This is THE main reason for deaths in the gauntlet. I for one learned the first night we were in there to simply not attack the uruk before I had seen the aoe go of (and you can easily spot this from the melee in your group suddenly dropping to half morale). And when the tank is holding 2, I attack, but expect to die.

The hardest raid ever deviced might also call for the best group- setup available. I think we did surprisingly well with only 1 tank and 3 captains, but when the heat goes up we fail easier. I guess at this point we can't really say what the best group- setup is because we need so many different class- specialities in the different stages, but we should focus on that issue. I'm not suggesting that any class is useless in this raid, but the only one you can't get of are the Burglars ;) (although this raid has been specially designed to deny success of a 12- burg raid)

The Durchest fight today (14/1) seemed very controlled up until we suddenly whiped. It made me think about interrupts. The frustrating detail with this instance is the way so many of the abilities are made useless, like the bosses being immune to root, stuns, FM and interrupts. The warg special f.eks (the debuff), can't be interrupted, believe me I tried all night. But maybe some of those specials the boss seems to pull of according to how the fight goes can be interrupted?

Then it's the Sorcerers, oh pain...

[Hurakan]

I was just wondering wheather we squishes should try and stay more close together because of that distributed damage thingy... On the hard mode attempt all was going well when suddenly we got hit for more damage we could handle and 3 of us died instantly, perhaps if more uf us were closer together this wouldn't have happened and we would have taken much less damage.

[Tiermond]

A couple of thoughts
Having a raid assist that isn't tanking would help when both tanks have picked up an uruk and there's multiple wargs to kill. The system we had worked well until we got a few too many uruks/wargs attacking then it would all get a bit chaotic.
When the 6th guard died durchest said something about flames at Hurakens feet, so either all group up and hope its distributed, or all spread out and let whoever gets it die. Hopefully this is something scripted for when a hm guard dies and if we are ready for it should be manageable.

[Hurakan]

When the 6th guard died durchest said something about flames at Hurakens feet, so either all group up and hope its distributed, or all spread out and let whoever gets it die. Hopefully this is something scripted for when a hm guard dies and if we are ready for it should be manageable.

The attack looked to have quite a bit of coverage and I believe that any of us dying here is a very bad thing and we should try to group and avoid people being one shot instead of try to spread and test our luck. I also think there was a similar attack after the 3rd guard died, but I cannot confirm this for sure. Are there any drawbacks if we all (except the tanks on Durchest) just group straight after we kill a guard? Perhaps after we've run through all 10 guards we will know when it is necessary to group and when not, but since we don't know this yet for sure, shouldn't we try and play it safe?

[Raedwulf]

I have a hunch the spawns we get going up the gauntlet are not totally random, to me it feels like each time we pass a treshold for a new corner we spawn something coming at us from the front. The back feels more timed. I think we can control this pretty good by timing the spawns from behind and watching where we trigger new spawns from up front. Would avoid us getting swarmed.

Welcome to the world of raid leading. You're 3 weeks late with this observation. What do you think I've been doing, last night especially with the first (record-time) & last (where the Uruk came from in front at just the wrong moment) gauntlet runs?

The problem with 2 uruks on the same spot is that more or less only the Guardian (with full Morale) can withstand 2 aoe's if they come close. This is THE main reason for deaths in the gauntlet.

Wrong. The main cause of death of death on the gauntlet is warg howls. Why do you think I target the bloody things first? We've wiped early (i.e. at the start at the bottom of the stairs) at least once on 3 out of 4 attempts at this place. There's only one Uruk there.

The hardest raid ever deviced might also call for the best group- setup available. I think we did surprisingly well with only 1 tank and 3 captains, but when the heat goes up we fail easier. I guess at this point we can't really say what the best group- setup is because we need so many different class- specialities in the different stages, but we should focus on that issue. I'm not suggesting that any class is useless in this raid, but the only one you can't get of are the Burglars ;) (although this raid has been specially designed to deny success of a 12- burg raid)

I'll answer this sentence by sentence, rather than splitting it into multiple quotes...

So I should cancel every raid that doesn't have the "ideal" set-up, should I?

I wasn't surprised.

You're damn right we can't, which makes your opening sentence a nonsense. And remember, you've not seen a third of this raid yet. Two GRDs might be great for the gauntlet. It might be crap later on. You have no idea (and neither do I). I have absolutely NO intention of focusing on this issue. I'll take whatever I've got & we'll do it with whatever, just the same as we've done in every raid & instance they've devised so far. And we've beaten every raid & instance they've devised so far, I'll remind you! ;)

Watch me get rid of the Burglars. We've raided BRG-less before, and I don't doubt we'll do it again. The only raid classes you can't get rid of are a minimum 1 LM, 1 MNS, and one other main healer (be it RK, or (I prefer) a second MNS). Everything else can be worked around, and has been in the past.

The Durchest fight today (14/1) seemed very controlled up until we suddenly whiped. It made me think about interrupts. The frustrating detail with this instance is the way so many of the abilities are made useless, like the bosses being immune to root, stuns, FM and interrupts. The warg special f. ex. (the debuff), can't be interrupted, believe me I tried all night. But maybe some of those specials the boss seems to pull of according to how the fight goes can be interrupted?

All night? What a lot of wasted effort. If you'd asked, I'd have told you they're not interruptable, except by stun. We knew that after the first attempt. As with all similar attacks (such as shaman-types summoning totem poles), if you stun them before before they get too far in, they don't complete the skill. Beyond that, Clobber-type attacks do not work.

As for the comment about abilities being made useless, it's not this instance; it's everything Turbine have designed for the last year or more. It's lazy design, it's arbitrary, I've been moaning about it, off & on, for months. But it's part of the game that's not going away, because it allows them to shortcut the design process to get challenging content out. It's highly irritating, I agree, but it's here to stay.

However, with only two exceptions, every interruptable (i.e. Clobberable) skill I have ever seen is marked by that special swirly induction circle. I haven't noticed any under Durchest, and I'm pretty sure that Oderid has probably tried random Clobbers by now, and would have said if any work. The exceptions, if you want to know, are the Summoners in SG (who have a circle, but aren't interruptable, when summoning their spirits), and there's a mob somewhere (I forget where) that doesn't display a circle, but is interruptable.

Finally, since I seem to be feeling in a narky mood this morning (so don't feel I'm picking on you too much, Baro! ;) I'm short on sleep & still pissed off at last night's failure, which I am, ultimately, responsible for)... I would appreciate it if, when we're in there, people stopped trying to lead my raid for me! If you want to lead so badly, set your own raid up. As the other leaders will testify, I don't try to lead when I'm in someone else's raid, and I'm getting a bit fed up with one or two individuals who are crossing the line from suggesting / reminding (yes I am prone to forgetting the RAT's at the start, not least because I would prefer it if the facility wasn't in the game at all! ;)) to giving orders. That is not on, and will result in me not choosing you if I have alternatives.

[Hurakan]

After having a very bad sleep last night :p I would like to share some more blasphemous thoughts, this time on the Gountlet:
- What would happen if we change priorities a bit and kill Uruks first and Wargs second. From the first pull where I root pull it looks like the Uruk dies quite fast if we are all on him. Wargs can be feared, mezed, rooted and we can kill them when there are no Uruks. We usually don't have any problems in the Gountlet unless there are 2-3 Uruks, why not try to avoid this and avoid testing our luck by burning fast any Uruks right after a tank picks them up. (Raedwulf just answered this above, so I got my answer).
- I have tried different approaches to Poison removal and if people don't use pots and I try to cure all poisons it takes me off dps 90% of the time. Should I remove poisons only when called to avoid people drinking a pot the same time I cure them? Unfortunately cure poison has a quite lenghty animation and it does not go as fast as I would like it to. Poisons can be cured by pots and salves and although you need quite a lot of these (I burned around 20 last night for curing my poisons alone) I would think it is best if people bring enough supplies of these (also eat soups) and use them as often as needed and let me dps Uruks/Wargs as much as I can. The gountlet is a dps race and taking one of the main damage dealers off dps for quite a bit of it is perhaps not the optimum solution.
- I would very much like to use precision stance for the gountlet. Why? Because it gives me a bonus to my focus each 10 seconds (it is traited), gives me a 13% bonus to criticals (legacy on melee weapon), more damage than endurance and less chance of missing (mobs are level 67 so this should not be ignored). I have a book of -12% threat as well as maxed Induction bow threat down legacy (rank 11) on my bow. So my question to the more experienced members is, should there be any problems if I use precision in the Gountlet with the above setup?

[Runyawen]

Just wanted to make two comments to a fellow hunter ^_^

I have tried different approaches to Poison removal and if people don't use pots and I try to cure all poisons it takes me off dps 90% of the time. Unfortunately cure poison has a quite lenghty animation and it does not go as fast as I would like it to.

Welcome to my world :p .. I find, in the gauntlet, it's better to keep dpsing. The only ones I clean off poisons are the minstrels (the +whatever% skill induction can really hurt healing) and the actually harmful poisons. Otherwise, you might very well be not dpsing at all, so little you get to do inbetween poison-animations. :)

I would very much like to use precision stance for the gountlet.

If you do not pull aggro and know to press BN if you -do- get aggro off of a warg/uruk, I don't see any reason you shouldn't be in Precision. I'm almost always in said stance, only dropping to Endurance for specific boss fights or situations (..aggro-wipes and the like :p). I'd go off about how a 'good hunter can mostly stay in precision', but I'm not really a good hunter at all, so that doesn't go up. :P Ahwell, I don't see problems anyway. ^_^

[Hurakan]

Thanks for the views Runy, looks like we share the same school of thought when it comes to Poisons/Hunter Stances :)

[Baro]

Raedwulf: "Watch me get rid of the Burglars."
Trying to scare me to shut up, are we? ;)

Sorry, you can't...

But keep picking on me, at least you got that right. I got elephant skin and professional training to handle that he he (no, seriously I do!).

I can't know what you know and don't know already unless you tell us. The uruk- fights is one field where I don't think we're done quite yet.

Last night was a strange night, I'm the lucky one who got out of that with only a mild frustration and 170 silver repairs, somehow I survived all the wipes and died only once to a doubble uruk aoe- attack.

I think one good observation should come of this, we should be aware that we are dansing on the edge all the way. Even when we are dansing through the gauntlet in 23 minutes, the same group then dies to 1 uruk and 2 wargs just minutes later.

When it comes to "radio- silence" I will want to point out that without the skilled sergant, the Captain is nothing but a dummy to hang his fancy uniform on. You rely on a very skilled group to even bother stepping into a place like Barad Guldur. So I suggest everyone who feels the need to help out remembering stuff like scrolls and RAT, stick to /tell and keep the "radio" for the leader. But don't make it sound like we should stand around like dummys, not thinking and blindly follow your lead.

Barad Guldur is amazing and very engaging. I really enjoy finally being part of a group exploring this place for the first time instead of joining when the place is on farm. I got to see the Vile Maw for the first time last week and that's how it's been up til now. So bear with me if I get a bit to engaged he he

[Raedwulf]

1) To give a more explicit explanation, every warg howl adds a +20% incoming damage buff. They also have a disgustingly long range, I'm guessing about 20m. When 2 or 3 wargs are around, the risk of multiple buffs being on an individual is significant. On one of the early wipes we had, the problem was that we had 2 wargs up the stair, and 2 came in from behind (note to Baro: usually it is only one, so reinforcements are not precisely scripted). The entire party was in range of the the lot & got hit with 4 debuffs. That is when wipes happen. And remember, the Uruks only use that 360 attack once in a while; those debuffs operate on all damage - all Uruk attacks, all warg attacks, all goblin attacks - whilst they are up.

Uruks have twice the hp of wargs, but come less frequently. In the time you take to kill an Uruk, you can easily get another 2 wargs in addition to whatever is already around; and whilst wargs can be cc'd, cc is inherently unreliable. It can be broken; it only takes a 2 second delay getting cc renewed and a warg is in the midst of the party, where cc is now next to impossible because of AoE. I am of the opinion that it is easier to remove the wargs than the Uruks. So far, it has largely worked.

2) Use your judgement, remembering that if I call a posion, I want it off. I'm refining the calls I make in light of experience. Last night, I was mostly only calling multiple poisons on a MNS or GRD, and that's the way I'll be going in the future. The poisons seem to be of two types a timed hit for @320 morale, or a slow. They're not that big a deal, but obviously several at once is too many. You can ignore anyone else calling poisons if you see fit.

3) Use your judgement. As I've said before, I do not micro-manage people. I trust people to play their class and, in doing so, I find out whether they're good, competent, or crap. If you think Precision is worth trying, try it; if you think it's better, stick with it; but what works well for you may not work well for another Hunter. That's why I almost never tell people what individual traits to run, or incorporate instructions along those lines into my guides. There is always room to find several ways to tackle a scenario (hence my earlier resistance to the notion of an "ideal" group).

[Hirion]

The exceptions, if you want to know, are the Summoners in SG (who have a circle, but aren't interruptable, when summoning their spirits)
For those of interest the same goes for the Watcher as well as for the Numenorean boss in Sword-Halls; the last one being just one tad more annoying since half his inductions can be interrupted while the other half cannot and both display a circle.

The problem with 2 uruks on the same spot is that more or less only the Guardian (with full Morale) can withstand 2 aoe's if they come close. This is THE main reason for deaths in the gauntlet
I agree with Raedwulf that the wargs -and their massive debuff- is more dangerous. However for the Uruk I still believe we might be better of if we can seperate them, so that when we move in to kill one we are in the radius of one only - to avoid those freak double Uruk-shaaaang shaaangs if possible.

I would think it is best if people bring enough supplies of these (also eat soups) and use them as often as needed and let me dps Uruks/Wargs as much as I can.
Yes it is a pain that you loose time shooting and yes people can use pots, however you forget that pots all share the same cooldown. Anyone removing a poison with pot (or just having removed something else) will be locked up. At times this can be a disaster. Yes fear, wounds, and diseases can be removed by captains and lore-master respectively, however captains have a long cooldown (potentially utterly silencing a minstrel with no pot if it's been used for something else) and lore-masters can only help their own group (potentially leaving a tank with an armour rendering wound because he just used a poison pot - without armour the tank can easily fold) and so on. And honestly, speaking as raiding hunter myself, hunters have the absolutely easiest job so adding poison removal really shouldn't be too much trouble.

I suggest, if you haven't already, that you develop strategies for how you sort the removal and swapping of targets at quickly as possible. You might already do this but using the F-keys speeds it up a lot, as does enabling skill forwarding, so you can simply target assist target while removing poison from the tank for instance, or pin up enemies with 'h' so you can quickly return to your target. I know the induction takes time - and that slows - but that is just the price of having a non-interruptable no-cooldown skill I suppose.

PS: burglars now have a decent poison removal (less induction and onger range) so we could consider sharing the burden - so that you strike a deal with the burglar that he keeps one person clear and you sort the others in a group.

I would very much like to use precision stance for the gountlet. Why? Because it gives me a bonus to my focus each 10 seconds (it is traited), gives me a 13% bonus to criticals (legacy on melee weapon)
All of which is absolutely insignificant if you have just pulled an Shadow-Mace, or an Uruk, of the tank drawing it into the core of the squishy eradicating half the raid with one of their AoEs. Which happened on at least one occasion last night. If it was only your self on the line I couldn't care less as your tank as it would be your jump to survive what you just brought down on yourself.

Yes I know Precision has been vastly improved - and yes I use the very same trait and legacy combo on my hunter. However you need to fight according to the circumstances, and Endurance not only makes your threat low; it also enables you to reduce your overall threat through Quick-Shot. No threat reducing legacy will ever enable you to do that in any other stance. Precision, even Strength, can be used in a raid, if used right, but you have to be confident that you are not grabbing something you shouldn't. In a massive onslaught of never-ending mobs it is hard to tank -you must know that as a warden also- as you have to both grab them fast and build threat fast too. Add to that, that you had a captain tanking for you last night. We are palsy at picking up several enemies just as well as our main threat skill is an one-on-one threat over time - meaning that we take out time grabbing hold. At the same time we have no forced taunt and no ranged attacks, so if you nick an incoming enemy with anything but an Endurance Quick-shot we cant just grab it as it runs past us heading for you.

Bottom line: all stances have their uses, but at different stages. I never meant that you should never use Precision when I asked you to drop to Endurance last night, just simply that it did terrible in those circumstances. Does that mean the Gauntlet altogether? Not necessarily - you can swap back and forth depending on situation - who, what lcass, is tanking it and for how long they've had to build up threat etc.

[Raedwulf]

For those of interest the same goes for the Watcher as well as for the Numenorean boss in Sword-Halls; the last one being just one tad more annoying since half his inductions can be interrupted while the other half cannot and both display a circle.

Yeah, I remembered the Watcher's tentacles a little while ago. The point is, though, the phrase "I tried all night". Why? I tried interrupting tentacles, it didn't work (and it's a lot more difficult to tell what's going on there cos any damage figures / evades / etc appear way over head!), so I didn't worry after that. I'd encourage people to try stuff like this. But if it doesn't work & keeps not working... ;)

[Hurakan]

Thanks for the views Raed and Hirion. I hope I am not annoying with my questions, and hope that you understand that I just want to make things more clear and make sure I do exactly what I am supposed to do.

Hirion, I used precision just at the start of the raid on one of the Guardians and it did not go very well, so I followed your advice right away and changed to endurance, after that I only used endurance :) Second time you asked me to use endurance I was already on endurance since like 30 min :) I must do a better job though of waiting a bit for a non-guardian tank to get aggro from an Uruk since even in endurance I can steal it quite often. Unfortunately in my small sample size of raids (all with RRU, thanks guys :p) we haven't had a captain tanking so I was not really sure how my threat generation in endurance/precision compares to yours. Sorry for that, will do better next time!

[Raedwulf]

Raedwulf: "Watch me get rid of the Burglars."
Trying to scare me to shut up, are we? ;)

Not in the slightest. What I was doing was emphasizing the point that I don't believe in ideal groups. If I've got a good reason to go in without a BRG (say, the only one signed up is thoroughly unreliable), I'm not going to take a BRG for the sake of having a BRG. If there's something that the BRG does that we'll be missing, then it's time to experiment & find another path through the maze...

I think one good observation should come of this, we should be aware that we are dansing on the edge all the way. Even when we are dansing through the gauntlet in 23 minutes, the same group then dies to 1 uruk and 2 wargs just minutes later.

Again, this news to you? ;) I'm still annoyed at the way last night went, but it was just one of those nights. From Dairos' accidental pull at the start, to the late, grate (sic) Uruk at the end, it just didn't want to come together quite right & it's doubly frustrating for me, both because I want to get through it, and also because I'm leading the rest of you. I don't mind wiping, I do mind failing. Aww, heck we did the gauntlet in record time, and we've only downed Durchest the once so far. Perhaps it wasn't so bad after all!

When it comes to "radio- silence" I will want to point out that without the skilled sergant, the Captain is nothing but a dummy to hang his fancy uniform on. You rely on a very skilled group to even bother stepping into a place like Barad Guldur. So I suggest everyone who feels the need to help out remembering stuff like scrolls and RAT, stick to /tell and keep the "radio" for the leader. But don't make it sound like we should stand around like dummys, not thinking and blindly follow your lead.

I don't & I wasn't. My point was about instances of people going too far. These are comments made out of combat, where radio silence does not pertain. When I see a member of the raid telling another member "You should have trait X", "We have to do this fight this way...", and so on, I don't like it. If I'm not giving such instructions, it is not someone else's place to do so, unless I've told them to (my usual response to CPT / BRG queries, for example).

Without the skilled sergeant, the Captain is very much more than just a uniformed dummy, thank you. :evil: Which isn't to say that skilled sergeants don't make his life easier! ;)

[Eiyja]

Thoughts and hunches:

My suggestion would be to rather have the tank in front grab one uruk + one warg, and the tank behind grabbing the same instead of separating the wargs and the uruks

Im not entirely sure about this, maybe its just a feeling I have but it really feels I have way better survivabiliy tanking 2 uruks than tanking uruk+warg.. I think its either cus of the debuffs the wargs put up and the uruks benefit from it a great deal, or either cus Im just crazy wrong ^^

[Raedwulf]

I hope I am not annoying with my questions.

Not in the least. It's not questions I object to, as you may have gathered by now! ;) As to the aggro thing, try starting Endurance QS / auto-attack only for a while. It never hurts to start encounters with the standard boss taactic of "give the tank 30s to build aggro before you start on your skills", even if I don't explicitly say so.

And again, I do not micro-manage; I don't like micro-management, whichever end of it I'm on. As far as I'm concerned, repeating the same thing over & over is tedious, annoying, and implies the manager lacks confidence in the intelligence and abilities of those he is talking to. It's precisely why my pre-fight instructions are already increasingly brief for the doorwardens & the gauntlet - constant reiteration of the same detailed instructions isn't necessary, unless there are several new to the fight.

If I lacked confidence in a player to that extent, I simply wouldn't take them along if I could help it. That, if you think about it, is a compliment to all of you! ;)

[Hirion]

Yeah, I remembered the Watcher's tentacles a little while ago.
Actually... whereas Mr. Sid himself cannot be interrupted (with the exception of a FM starter) it seems his tentacle can - but you're right that there is no 'Interrupted' text to confirm it, but their induction cycles to vanish and the effect stops from happening (in the early start at the 3rd Phase this is a heal on the Watcher). However later in the fight, past one minute after the tentacles spawned they have induction circles still but you cannot interrupt their healing of the Watcher now...

Induction circles and interrupt - talk of lack of consistence.

I hope I am not annoying with my questions, and hope that you understand that I just want to make things more clear and make sure I do exactly what I am supposed to do.
Not at all - questions are the way the world evolves after all. Answers however... :P

And I must have missed the stance at that point then. Add to it that I was a bit frustrated at my inhibitions at grabbing the constant flow of enemies. Especially because I still vividly recall the haydays of captain tanking, back when our threat was better. Captains are bad at picking up targets - again a Champion would be better at that (besides GRDs and WRDs), but for other reasons a captain might be prefered once we do have the monster grabbed.

So we either need a head start or Endurance Quick Shots only - a head start that can be used on purging poisons, hitting something firmly on a tank. or on taking one or two ranged off a minstrel.

[Eiyja]

I would very much like to use precision stance for the gountlet. Why? Because it gives me a bonus to my focus each 10 seconds (it is traited), gives me a 13% bonus to criticals (legacy on melee weapon), more damage than endurance and less chance of missing (mobs are level 67 so this should not be ignored). I have a book of -12% threat as well as maxed Induction bow threat down legacy (rank 11) on my bow. So my question to the more experienced members is, should there be any problems if I use precision in the Gountlet with the above setup?

I can only answer this one partially.. I have focused heavily on threat generating legacies and traits for Eiyja´s build so she should be pretty good when it comes to holding agro.
When hunters use presision stance in FS I struggle. They keep pulling agro off me and it becomes a tug war where I might or might not have agro most of the time but definetly not all the time. Sometimes I even cant hold it at all except for the duration of my forced taunts (and if it comes to that I either bitch or moan about it, screw it and leave the group or announce the hunter as the new main tank and start having fun with my twohander in overpower until he dies muahahaha- entirely depending on my current mood<swing>)

In raids its a bit different as the tank tend to get a lot more help from BRG provoke, CPT skills and buffs skills and CHM ebbing ire. For you to be able to use precision stance in raids I think it requires for the raid in whole to help the tank with whatever skills they have to raise his/her agro. If they dont do this it will be same deal as in FS play and then I would say its not a good idea to use presicion stance (atleast not constantly).

Now, another reason for why I can only answer this partially is that the next upcoming patch is supposed to fix issues in GRD threat stance (which I am always using for tanking and though I know it is broken currently I have no idea exactly how broken it is- so far it has worked fairly for me overall but not as good as I believe it is supposed to). So after next patch I would expect some improvements for the GRDs who use this stance in terms of threat generation and ofcourse it is impossable to say whether or not this change will be huge or minor.

All I can say is it might be a good idea to let the tank and the raid know in advance when you are going to switch to anything other than endurance stance and try it out & do some testing and experimenting.

p.s. one thing I absolutely hate is when trigger happy hunters start nuking before I even get a chance to hit the mob and at the same time they make sure to stand at absolutely maximum range away from melee. So if youre going to test the limits then place yourself close to melee range ;)

[Grimbos]

Quick question:

Berserker or AoE traiting for Champs? Sounds like there's not much that a full AoE build will help with, so I'm guessing a 4/2/1 build would do? (the 1 is Braced Against Defeat, never leave home without it ;))

[Raedwulf]

You'd be surprised. I went for quite a while on a Watcher-induced full AoE build that included dropping BoD, and still survived pretty well, even on solo. Again, try what you like. AoE is plenty useful and you are, after all, designed as the nuker dealing mass damage, rather than the Hunter sniper focusing on one target. I'm not sure taking it so far as to equip Deathstorm would be worthwhile. But I'll have to think about it myself in advance of Saturday's raid (if it happens)!

[Runyawen]

But I'll have to think about it myself in advance of Saturday's raid (if it happens)!

It better happen! :P It's my shot at getting in again :(
Come on people, join our saturday raid and I'll provide plenty of muffins and hugs! :D

[Hirion]

Come on people, join our saturday raid and I'll provide plenty of muffins and hugs! :D
/runs off to sign off only to sign back in - with muffins!

[Eiyja]

Tonight I realized something quite fundamental about how the Durchie fight works.. basically I think he should be fought with a similar kind of approach as Nornuan in the Filikul instance.

Every 10 or so seconds Durch puts up an added -10% threat debuff on whoever is tanking him.. and it has 40 or 45 seconds timer before it goes away (I think it was 40 seconds). The bad thing is that whenever you get another 10% agro debuff on you the timer seems to reset back to 40 seconds before the debuff is cleared (very similar to Nornuan´s wounds).

What that means if there are two or three tanks (= the way we have been doing this so far) who randomly flip agro between themselfs, then in the end all the tanks will be so heavily debuffed with -%threat that none of them are capable of doing anything (this is because they dont get enough time away from Durch to let the debuff timer run down)... and that is the point where Duch starts wiping the raid (and if the tanks manage to pull agro back before their debuffs are gone the situation just gets worse with even greater penalities to threat and timer resets).

I also mentioned that forced taunts doesnt seem to work.. I was wrong. They do work when you have no debuffs on you. (kept an extra careful eye out for this last fight we had.... challenge worked no problem in the start with no debuffs and didnt work when I was up to just 30% threat penalty. I also remember engage did nothing for me when I had 70% threat debuff the fight before.. and the reason why I assumed that he is immune to taunts is because I have always had these debuffs on me constantly on previous attemts on this fight- alas he is only "immune" when you try to taunt him while suffering from his threat debuff penalties) So it seems that as your threat debuffs grow larger then your forced taunts no longer work at all.

When thinking about what I know from Filikul and now what I learned about these debuff timers in this Durcham fight I would suggest something like this for a tactic on how to fight him;

Tank1 grabs Durch and holds him until his debuff is up to somewhere around 40% threat penalty debuff.. at this point Tank2 grabs him. Now the key thing here is that Tank1 can not pull the agro back before his debuff is completely gone.. The reason for this is that otherwise his timer resets to 40 seconds and then it slowly but surely (or fast :P ) builds up to the point where both tanks have massive threat penatlies and the raid gets wiped.

Im not sure if the debuff timers would run down fast enough for just two tanks to handle this so I think it woudl be smart also include a champion or a captain as a 3rd tank and work out a good rotation schedule between the three of them. Anyway the most important thing is that whoever of the tanks who is waiting for his debuff to dissapear can not pull agro- otherwise his timer will refresh to 40 seconds and he will never get rid of the debuff which will just grow larger and larger).

So maybe an idea would be to have 3 tanks and speed up the rotation to switch tanks at every 30% instead? Tank1 starts,, tank 2 takes over when tank1 is at a 30% penalty.. tank 3 takes over when tank2 is at a 30% penalty and then tank1 grabs it back as soon as his debuff is gone.. then tank2 grabs him when he is cleared of his debuff.. etc etc..
Whenever an add comes both of the tanks who are "free" could grab the add.. or just one.. I still belive that kiting Durch when adds come is a good idea (if nothing else then atleast the tank who is kiting gets hit a little less and it would help the healers in that way) so one or both shouldnt matter so much. When the add is dead the kiting stops and the rotation of the tanks keeps on going again (the tank who was fighting Durch while the raid finished off the add by this point probably has a very high threat penalty debuff on him so if killing the add takes too long he might have such a high -% threat penalty debuff that the ministrels get agro from just healing--- so either the add must die fast or the tank rotation must be kept going all the time regardless of if there are any adds or not)

To rotate with just 2 tanks or to use 3 tanks- Im not sure what would be better idea. It really depends on how much -% threat will Durcham dish out on the tanks before the debuff timer runs down to zero on the one(s) that is/are waiting on their debuffs to dissapear? But learning what I learned I think the key to this fight is that any of the tanks must always have enough of "break time" when Durch does not hit him at all to allow his debuff to completely go away before he gets back in the fight again.

[Hirion]

Add to that Eiyja, as I was trying to say in the raid, that the adds seems to have a similiar debuff that increases you threat. If that is the case it makes even more sense for a tank rotation to address the adds.

[Eiyja]

aha I never spotted that myself.. in that case it would be good if the tank(s) wiht the biggest debuffs would go for the add while a "fresh" (aka debuff-free) tank stays with Durchie.

[Rhyaehar]

When the 6th guard died durchest said something about flames at Hurakens feet, so either all group up and hope its distributed, or all spread out and let whoever gets it die. Hopefully this is something scripted for when a hm guard dies and if we are ready for it should be manageable.
It's not scripted. It also happens after you kill the first guard in normal mode. It's just one of those things. Keep in mind that, should you let whomever gets it die, you will make HM longer. That combined with him hitting harder after every add, might not be the best thing. If anyone has a combat log saved, maybe they can see if the attack is distributed?

[Sigrorn]

Some thoughts about the Dúrchest fight ,
Found it rather hard to tank Dúrchest when i hade the aggro due
to his 6+K cleave 'distribute' attacks .
But how is it distributed did the melleeclasses hitting him in the back
also recieved the full amount of +6K or only the tank in front ?

Well if everyone in melleerange recieve a cleave over 6 K then the
only alternative is to kite him around , the room is big enough .

My observation was that Cleave was 180º frontal distributed
So in theory 6 meleeclasses taking him frontal would share the +6K
damage recieving 1K each .

Joined the tank at a time hitting him frontal so that 2 were in front
and Cleave hit me for 3K , this is what started me thinking about it.
But i can be wrong .

[Rhyaehar]

It's a distributed attack. It distributes damage among players in range.
1 in range = 6/12k depending on which attack
2 in range = 3/6k depending on attack
12 in range = 500/1k depending on attack

[Grimbos]

So, ideally, you'd want the heavy melees in his face, and the rest of the raid at his back. Coupled with the aggro thingy where aggro built on the add increases the aggro on the boss (If I understood that part right) you'd want both the boss and the add between the raid. in case of an add, the MT switches to him while the OT takes over Durchy. as soon as the MT lost his aggro-debuff (40 seconds) you transfer him back to MT. rinse and repeat et voila, dead Durchest :) (if only it were this simple ;))

PS, add question marks where applicable, as this is just theory crafting

[Rhyaehar]

(if only it were this simple ;))

It is ;) If you do it right. I don't know if you are doing this already, but having your combat log saved can be incredibly helpful, as it allows you to look for special attacks after combat. A wealth of information can be gained from these.

[Hurakan]

So, ideally, you'd want the heavy melees in his face, and the rest of the raid at his back. Coupled with the aggro thingy where aggro built on the add increases the aggro on the boss (If I understood that part right) you'd want both the boss and the add between the raid. in case of an add, the MT switches to him while the OT takes over Durchy. as soon as the MT lost his aggro-debuff (40 seconds) you transfer him back to MT. rinse and repeat et voila, dead Durchest :) (if only it were this simple ;))

PS, add question marks where applicable, as this is just theory crafting

After reading all above, this pretty much summarizes my thoughts as well. I believe we need to try different tanking approach and positioning.

Last night when he targeted me at some point and I was in a group of 3-4 players he hit me for something like 2k, then people screamed for me to run, I ran and got eventually hit for 7+k.
I asked before but nobody commented on it, are there any drawbacks if we (non-tanks) try and stay grouped as much as possible behind the boss? I am not sure if any of us squishes that tried to run away when targeted managed to survive, so we might just stay put and try to get the damage distributed.
Providing we manage to sort the agrro debuff eventually I really don't see why we should still not stay grouped, since this would also help us with the fire bombs, for which we have so far mainly relied on our luck and intuitive positioning.

[Baro]

I'm probably gonna be yelled at for saying this again, but I think the gauntlet can be done quite smoother with some timing and actual use of what we know about the place by now. My points are not proven right yet as I'm bussy with other things in this fight then to time the spawns, but having done this so many times I think I have a good base to claim this:

-The spawns we get from up front are not random, they are mostly triggered by us passing tresholds. Example, we always meet 1 Uruk, 1 warg and 2 gobbos at the bottom of the stairs. We always get 2 wargs+ 2 gobbos from behind (don't we?). Sometimes we wait and fight these wargs at the bottom, sometimes we bring them to the first ramp, and then we get to fight them simultaneously with another uruk + warg+ 2 gobbos from up front (which we trigger by stepping another treshold). Can we at least try to fight the 2 wargs at the bottom next time for no other reason then to prove me wrong?

-We move ahead according to when the uruks are down, sometimes we bring a warg and a few gobbos. This gives us what seems like random spawns, simply because the next spawn isn't timed from when the first is killed, it is timed from when the previous was spawned.

-The spawns from behind seems to come from several locations close or further down the gauntlet. My observation is that these are the same each time, but I think they have a pathing problem, specially if they spawn far down the stairs. they are ALWAYS 2 gobbos, 1 warg + 1 uruk, but they reach us at different times and confuse some to think the spawns are random.

-Some tresholds also seem to spawn more troubble from behind. There is one spot where we now get to go out of combat while we wait for the next spawn from behind. When we then move next, we always get swarmed. My theory is that we move to far and thereby trigger spawns from both front and rare. I want to suggest that we at least try once to not run to far ahead, again for no other reason then to prove me wrong. Last night we wiped at this possition once, and I saw Gil stepping the next treshold as he was trying to pull a Uruk away from the group, with this triggering yet another group of 1 uruk, 1 warg + 2 gobbos.

-If we do this right we can probably run the gauntlet without to much troubble. My suggestion is to focus more on CC. The wargs can be cc'ed, the uruk can't. So again I will suggest that we try to stun/ fear the warg while we get the uruk down as fast as possible. This will then prevent us from fighting more then 1 uruk. The rest are not that strong, even I can tank a warg. But 2 urks= pain!

-I also want to suggest that Hunters uses the incombat multi- trapps for the gauntlet and set a trap each time we move to the next corner. This will hopefully slow down the warg and the gobbos attacking from behind, with LOS preventing the howl to take effect while we then nuke the uruk.

The Durchest fight still confuses me, but from the runs we've had so far my suggestions are:
-2 tanks. Eiyja has made some brilliant observations, based on this I don't think there's any other way.
-Corruptions removals. Maybe Rhya can comment on how much he uses CR on Durchest? Do we need the second tank to be a Warden?

I'm basing my suggestions here on the fact that the one time we actually got him down we had 2 tanks and LM + RK removing corruptions all the time (pluss me every 45 sec and whoever else made an impact).

When Durchest looses interest in the tank he turns to the next in line for fun. To me it looks like he then uses his big attack pretty fast and this is what gives us the deaths that screwes up the fight for us. I got that attention the first fight we had last night, and I figured I shoud kite him like Gil does. But this must have been my biggest mistake as I took the entire blow myself instead of getting the distributed damage. My observation is supported by the fact that each time he goes of to someone standing alone, this person dies. Hurakan gets this attention almost every time we're in there, and he's ranging from a bit behind the group. Oderid died by kiting, same did Grimbos. Sigrorn died as he tried to turn Durchest away from the group, probably you should have done the exact oposite.

I think we need to group up in one big pile all fighting from his front. The 2 tanks will work the agro, but he will not turn anywhere, always fight the group.
This will also keep Minstrels in range to use the Hammer- thingy and help with corruptions inbetween.
When we get an add, is there any reason we can't keep them both togather and let the aoe affect Durchest while we kill the add? Are we splitting them out of old habbit or is there a reason for this I haven't picked up yet?

I'd like to see ideas on what to try out next time to make some progress, not just walk in and do everything like we did last night all over again. Cause that didn't work.

[Raedwulf]

I'm probably gonna be yelled at for saying this again...

...We always get 2 wargs+ 2 gobbos from behind (don't we?).

Yeah, you're going to get yelled at again. :P I've already told you this is not true. Haven't read the rest of your post, cos I haven't got time right now. I've already agreed that some of the events are scripted, but unless you're proposing that we stand around for 15 minutes at each point to see what comes, and at what intervals, (which suggestion I would decline), I see enough randomness to be convinced that some of the reinforcements are randomised (within parameters, presumably). We got buried in wargs on one run yesterday, for example, which hasn't happened before. QED, I think.

[Eiyja]

to try to incorporate in short everything that has been mentioned above about tanking and threat.. hows this for a plan?

3 tank rotation.. first round of rotation a new tank force taunts and begins tanking every time a current tank is up to 30% threat penalty debuff. Some basic mathematics suggests then that tank3 should be on the job about 60 seconds into the fight if doing it this way (assuming the debuffs are put up in a constant pace about every 10 seconds) and meanwhile tank1 should be free of the debuff somewhere just after that 60 second mark (as he would have then had approximately 25-35 seconds of "work" followed by 40 seconds of "rest"). Tank3 should be the "weakest" tank (aka a champion or someone who is not per se a "real" tank since if the rotation works smoothly tank3 will be the one that gets hit the least amount of time. Although if tank1 and tank2 mess up their debuff timers by accidentaly agroing too soon too often then tank3 will get a lot more work to do as he is the "safety net" ).

After the first round (when the initial tank gets cleared of his debuff and from there onwards) the "next" tank always taunts and takes over the job when he is cleared of his debuff.

As soon as an add appears; The tank who last got "released" from Durhcam-duty goes for the add while current tank and "runner-up" tank stays on Durcham. Keep the rotation going even during add-phases and whenever a tank gets "released from Durcham-duty" he runs immediatelly to the add - and whoever was on the add returns to Durcham to get ready to pick him up when his threat penalty debuff runs out. If that works smoothly then all the tanks should get the debuff from the add spread out fairly smoothly amongs them (this would be important because if ONE tank gets heavily debuffed by the add he might attract the agro from both the add + Durchie and end up a dead tank... whereas if the debuff from the add is spread out evenly among all the tanks it would <I think (we think?)> have a positive "cancelling" effect on the debuff that is cast by Durcham)

The raid balls up between the add and the boss close to eachother so that nobody is far away when the "splash" damage <shared damage> spells are being cast upon us. EDIT: <after reading later posts> Balling up is especially important right after an add dies (or when a player dies but that should not happen and if it happens it is harder to predict). Also Durcham must not have many corruptions on him when an add dies <his removable corruption icons are BLUE with a hint of some white Scheiße in the middle I think>.

As for kiting or not? The rotation of the tanks would be easier and smoother if we would not kite Durch when adds come with this system. But if the healers can´t handle to keep both the Durcham-tank and the add-tank up then its better to kite Durch like we have done so far and deal with "smoothness-issues" in the rotation chain due to the tanks having to "chase" Durcham at times before they can pick him up.

Might be an idea to assign healers into two teams where the second team focuses on the player that is targeted by the add whenever there is one?

There has also been discussions whether or not it is helpful to avoid some aoe attacks by attacking Durcham from behind or not.. I dont know but as always; a mob <or player> who is attacked from behind is unable to block and parry so we should do it regardless. Therefore whoever is tankning should face Durch away from the raid and the other two tanks should be behind him together with the rest of the raid until it is their time to step up and taunt.
EDIT: does his distributed cleave only hit in 180 degree or is it a full 360??? if it is only 180 degree then minimum 3 heavy armor need be in front of him to avoid wipes.. preferably more than 3 (maybe all of the heavies?)!!!!!

/emote leans back in the chair pouring up a cold beer and relaxing while waiting for thoughts and input *:D*

[Derigar/Tarinas]

Whenever anything dies, Durcham does his soul reap and it has a different effect. The most obvious one is when a fire soldier dies, a few seconds later he does that huge firey explosion (likely tactical damage, so important for him to be free of green corruptions at this phase of the fight). For whatever reason, when a shadow enemy dies OR a player dies, he seems to get that stacking buff that we've all confused with a corruption in the chaos before. My guess is that this is whats killing us - maybe it gives him a one off big hit, maybe it ups his damage, honestly i'm just guessing really.

Regardless though, when he starts tearing through us, he is dealing rediculous damage that we just can't offset, so maybe the only way to stop this is just to not let anyone die (in our successful attempt we only had one death i believe).

[Hirion]

I have a suspicion - one that I'll want to test on the next run - that while he uses the death of a fire guard for triggering the Fire Nova he likewise uses the dead of the shadow guards to trigger his shadow seed on us; the fear that among other things seems to heal him if not removed ASAP.

I'm not certain about this but the timing of him using either seemed to suggest that.

[Raedwulf]

The death of a guard may be a trigger for the two special attacks. It does not give him a soul reap. This is caused only by the death of a player, and it's what gives him the very big heal that he fires off at 100K. That's why when he gets too many, I abort the attempt. If we've run out resses and someone dies, that means he's got about 5 reaps to call on, so we're not going to get him down.

[Hurakan]

Can't stop thinking about the Durchest fight and the very bad taste that it leaves in my mouth each time...
In order to get the threat debuff, do you need to tank him or you just need to stay in melee range in front of him?
Can somebody also please send me screenshots of his corruptions?

[Eiyja]

it seems the threat debuff is given to those who are being hit by Durchie. In other words, when we improve in this fight it should be tanks only. Sorry I dont have screenies of his corruptions but they are pretty easy to spot since he has no other debuff icon that is blue.

[Hurakan]

it seems the threat debuff is given to those who are being hit by Durchie. In other words, when we improve in this fight it should be tanks only. Sorry I dont have screenies of his corruptions but they are pretty easy to spot since he has no other debuff icon that is blue.

Do you think a hunter who stays in melee range in front of Durchie with the tank will get the debuff? I assume if the hunter does not get aggro he will still be hit occasionally by the distributed attack? I think one of the reasons I am being one of the first people to die in this fight usually (despite being in endurance and spamming swift bow) is that I am usually trying to run from Durchie when I get aggro. Do you think I can stay with the tank, possibly getting the threat debuff and also helping with the distributed attack?

[Eiyja]

I believe the threat debuff works the same way as Nornuan´s wound debuff works in the Filikul instance (aka the boss sets it off within timed intervalls.. in this case I belive Durchie does it approximately every 10 seconds). So if you have his agro at the time when he casts the debuff you will get the debuff (I believe it is a single-target only debuff). At the bottom of page 5 in this thread I have attempted to put together a "plan/tactic" for how to handle this fight and I think that if it succeeds then nobody else should be hit by the boss except the assigned tanks (either 2 or 3.. personally Im leaning towards the 3 tank setup). But in the end it is the raidleaders call what kind of tactic he wants us to excecute so they are only observations and suggestions at this point.

The reason for why I believe you so far have been among the first to die in this fight is because we this far have not tried the tanking rotation that I suggested earlier in this thread in the plan I mentioned above- we have tried to flip agro between 2 to 3 tanks but we havnt yet realized before now that they need enough time to clear the debuff until it is gone- (we have not had the chance to do so yet as I put these thoughts together only after our last run) and thus all previous attempts we have had tanks with huge minus threat % debuffs on them making it so that they can no longer outthreat the people who are normally 2nd runner ups on the bosses hate-list (usually the pure dps;ers- and hence you get agro and die).

I dont think it makes any difference debuff-wise whether you stand far away or in melee range as I think the best way to do this is to distribute the debuff among 3 selected tanks <heavy armor or WRD> and so you should not be hit at all if the tactic works out well. But as I suggested in my "plan"; I think the raid needs to be close together for other reasons, mainly 1) to share the splash damage (aka the shared damage) that he casts whenever an add <fire adds only?> dies and 2) to share the cleave damage he does in melee <still not sure if it is a 180 degree or a 360 degree attack??>.

[Hirion]

Sorry for the delay but here are various screenshots as promised:


http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m155/ulisterius/ScreenShot00448.jpghttp://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m155/ulisterius/ScreenShot00449.jpg
Debuff applied by the armoured guards (at this time I dont recall which of the two was from the mace, axe, or sword).

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m155/ulisterius/ScreenShot00446.jpg
Various buffs of Dûrchest's.


http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m155/ulisterius/ScreenShot00454.jpg
Various threat-changing debuffs from the Dûrchest fight. I believe the Loosing Threat and Insignificance are gotten from Dûrchest himself, while the Gaining Threat is gotten from the adds (not sure if from all or just some of them - but I supsect all).

The Gaining Threat is not just toward what you are fighting while having it, it seems, but raised your previous threat too, and I believe it the reason why Dûrchest sometimes while being kited turns around and charges into attack someone on the add.

[Hirion]

I also set my combat log to record on the last attempt - unfortunately the document is too big to attach, so I'll coppy the text right in.

Also, while I did start the recording I didn't think to change the filters in the particular chat tab - which I'll do next time - missing out on connections between defeats, combat updates, and those messages about Dûrchest doing this or saying that.

### Chat Log: Combat 01/17 10:50 PM ###
Nothing to cure.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 146 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 1,221 points of Beleriand damage.
You partially hit Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 148 points of Beleriand damage.
You have dispelled Corrupt Defenses from Dúrchest.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 320 points of Beleriand damage.
Villieth heals you for 855 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 205 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 198 points of Beleriand damage.
You heal yourself for 160 Power points.
You heal 226 points of your wounds.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 231 points of Beleriand damage.
You partially hit Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 177 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 95 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 219 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 163 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 152 points of Light damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 108 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 396 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 109 points of Morale.
Sigrorn heals you for 82 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 271 points of Beleriand damage.
Nothing to dispel.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 355 points of Beleriand damage.

You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 465 points of Beleriand damage.

You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 414 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 969 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 99 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 328 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 109 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 64 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Cutting Attack for 316 points of Beleriand damage.

You wound Dúrchest with Valiant Strike for 424 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 64 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 72 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 265 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 62 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 370 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 591 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 62 points of Common damage.
Nothing to dispel.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 503 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 62 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 96 points of Morale.
Sigrorn heals you for 109 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 57 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 57 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 317 points of Beleriand damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with Purging Strike for 659 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Grave Wound for 227 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 41 points of Common damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with Rend for 659 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 187 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 41 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Improved Defensive Strike for 192 points of Beleriand damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with Whirlwind for 1,374 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 154 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 41 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Battle-shout for 116 points of Light damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 91 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 161 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe for 75 points of Light damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with a mighty melee attack for 1,374 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Devastating Blow for 282 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 182 points of Beleriand damage.
You have dispelled Corrupt Protection from Armoured Black-axe.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Improved Blade of Elendil for 510 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 277 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Improved Defensive Strike for 223 points of Beleriand damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with Whirlwind for 627 points of Common damage.
Villieth heals you for 1,453 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Black-axe for 51 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe for 31 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Cutting Attack for 305 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 274 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe for 87 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe for 51 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 204 points of Beleriand damage.
You heal yourself for 120 Power points.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Improved Defensive Strike for 236 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe for 51 points of Common damage.
Hurakan defeated Armoured Black-axe.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 147 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 792 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 178 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 114 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Shadow's Lament for 341 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 32 Power points.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 229 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 134 points of Beleriand damage.
You partially hit Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 108 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 42 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Cutting Attack for 171 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 86 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 42 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 186 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 107 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 28 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 99 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 163 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 28 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 792 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 83 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 28 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 109 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 163 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Routing Cry for 144 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 35 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 101 points of Morale.
You have dispelled Corrupt Defenses from Dúrchest.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 283 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 188 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 42 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
You heal 226 points of your wounds.
You heal yourself for 160 Power points.
You wound Dúrchest for 43 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 286 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 282 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 53 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 89 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 39 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 220 points of Beleriand damage.
You heal yourself for 120 Power points.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 219 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 103 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 39 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 219 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 136 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 159 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 86 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 238 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 109 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 206 points of Beleriand damage.
You are wounded for 164 points of Fire damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 84 points of Morale.
You have dispelled Vile Energies from Dúrchest.
Sigrorn heals you for 109 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 292 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 176 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 92 points of Morale.
Armoured Flame-mace wounds you for 170 points of Fire damage.
Dúrchest wounds you with Boot to Face for 1,473 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace for 94 points of Light damage.
Armoured Flame-mace wounds you for 169 points of Fire damage.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace with Default Melee Attack for 219 points of Beleriand damage.
You heal yourself for 120 Power points.
Dairos heals you for 1,800 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace with Improved Defensive Strike for 319 points of Beleriand damage.
Armoured Flame-mace wounds you for 173 points of Fire damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 114 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace with Default Melee Attack for 218 points of Beleriand damage.
Dúrchest defeated Grimbos.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace with Battle-shout for 165 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace with Default Melee Attack for 247 points of Beleriand damage.
Armoured Flame-mace wounds you for 166 points of Fire damage.
Armoured Flame-mace wounds you with Underhanded Swing for 620 points of Common damage.
Armoured Flame-mace wounds you for 175 points of Fire damage.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace with Devastating Blow for 427 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace with Default Melee Attack for 210 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace for 93 points of Light damage.
Grimbos has been revived.
Armoured Flame-mace wounds you for 175 points of Fire damage.
You have dispelled Corrupt Haste from Armoured Flame-mace.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace with Improved Blade of Elendil for 699 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Flame-mace with Default Melee Attack for 387 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn defeated Armoured Flame-mace.
Dúrchest wounds you with Fire Nova (Distributed) for 2,370 points of Fire damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 151 points of Light damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 104 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 1,344 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 243 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 432 points of Beleriand damage.
You have dispelled Vile Energies from Dúrchest.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 354 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 110 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 196 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 253 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 35 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 206 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Cutting Attack for 226 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 105 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 27 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Valiant Strike for 208 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 34 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 199 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 145 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 132 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 40 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 194 points of Beleriand damage.
You are wounded for 193 points of Shadow damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 40 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 169 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 40 points of Common damage.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you for 191 points of Shadow damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 27 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 27 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe for 31 points of Light damage.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you with Rend for 690 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Default Melee Attack for 263 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Devastating Blow for 1,463 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 46 points of Common damage.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you for 209 points of Shadow damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Default Melee Attack for 358 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 42 points of Common damage.
You have dispelled Corrupt Power from Armoured Shadow-axe.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you with Whirlwind for 806 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Improved Blade of Elendil for 296 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 42 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe for 31 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Shadow's Lament for 685 points of Beleriand damage.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you for 209 points of Shadow damage.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you with Rend for 733 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe for 52 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Cutting Attack for 237 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Default Melee Attack for 243 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 123 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe for 93 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Grave Wound for 254 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Default Melee Attack for 215 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe for 32 points of Light damage.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you with Purging Strike for 806 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Battle-shout for 172 points of Light damage.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you for 190 points of Shadow damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 109 points of Morale.
You partially hit Armoured Shadow-axe with Default Melee Attack for 179 points of Beleriand damage.
Villieth heals you for 1,546 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Devastating Blow for 1,378 points of Beleriand damage.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you with a mighty melee attack for 580 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 84 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe for 32 points of Light damage.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you for 201 points of Shadow damage.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you with Purging Strike for 638 points of Common damage.
You have dispelled Corrupt Power from Armoured Shadow-axe.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Improved Blade of Elendil for 350 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Default Melee Attack for 283 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 86 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe for 87 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Improved Defensive Strike for 635 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Default Melee Attack for 194 points of Beleriand damage.
You heal 237 points of your wounds.
You heal yourself for 160 Power points.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you with Whirlwind for 580 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 103 points of Morale.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you for 202 points of Shadow damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Default Melee Attack for 281 points of Beleriand damage.
Villieth heals you for 854 points of Morale.
Sigrorn heals you for 101 points of Morale.
Armoured Shadow-axe wounds you with Rend for 552 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Shadow-axe with Improved Defensive Strike for 297 points of Beleriand damage.
Giladren defeated Armoured Shadow-axe.
You partially hit Armoured Shadow-axe with Default Melee Attack for 212 points of Beleriand damage.
Dúrchest defeated Oderid.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 120 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 182 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 14 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 130 points of Beleriand damage.
You have dispelled Corrupt Defenses from Dúrchest.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 282 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 163 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 165 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 119 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 17 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 135 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 27 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Cutting Attack for 133 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 185 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 183 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 33 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 21 points of Light damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 86 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Inspire for 163 points of Beleriand damage.
You heal 89 points of wounds of Grimbos.
You wound Dúrchest for 33 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 147 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 33 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 139 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 14 points of Light damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 20 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 91 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 181 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 90 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 27 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
You have dispelled Vile Energies from Dúrchest.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 199 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 149 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 98 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 27 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 105 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 32 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 75 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 187 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 32 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 254 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Inspire for 147 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 152 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 42 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 154 points of Light damage.
You heal 88 points of wounds of Grimbos.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 351 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 367 points of Beleriand damage.
You heal 91 points of wounds of Grimbos.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 175 points of Beleriand damage.
You have dispelled Vile Energies from Dúrchest.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 240 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 28 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 41 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Default Melee Attack for 175 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Cutting Attack for 174 points of Beleriand damage.
You heal 108 points of wounds of Grimbos.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 28 points of Light damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 30 points of Morale.
Sigrorn heals you for 37 Power points.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Default Melee Attack for 197 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Grave Wound for 182 points of Beleriand damage.
Armoured Black-mace wounds you with Purging Strike for 659 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Default Melee Attack for 219 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 29 points of Morale.
Sigrorn heals you for 33 Power points.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 24 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Battle-shout for 117 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Default Melee Attack for 164 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 74 points of Light damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 46 points of Morale.
Sigrorn heals you for 34 Power points.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Devastating Blow for 1,045 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Default Melee Attack for 209 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Shadow's Lament for 512 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 24 points of Light damage.
Armoured Black-mace wounds you with Smash for 529 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Default Melee Attack for 225 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 24 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 74 points of Light damage.
Dúrchest defeated Hurakan.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 24 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Devastating Blow for 263 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Default Melee Attack for 291 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 31 points of Light damage.
You wound Armoured Black-mace for 87 points of Light damage.
You heal 226 points of your wounds.
You heal yourself for 160 Power points.
Ariabereth defeated Armoured Black-mace.
You wound Armoured Black-mace with Improved Defensive Strike for 225 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 138 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 86 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 95 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 94 points of Morale.
Sigrorn heals you for 104 points of Morale.
You heal 226 points of your wounds.
You heal yourself for 160 Power points.
Hurakan has been revived.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 128 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 106 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 100 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 225 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 93 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 151 points of Beleriand damage.
You have dispelled Vile Energies from Dúrchest.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 247 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Battle-shout for 152 points of Light damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with Purging Strike for 659 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Devastating Blow for 1,203 points of Beleriand damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with Whirlwind for 659 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 200 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Shadow's Lament for 605 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 251 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe for 45 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Cutting Attack for 247 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 88 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Black-axe for 73 points of Light damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with a mighty melee attack for 659 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe for 39 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 195 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Grave Wound for 200 points of Beleriand damage.
You heal 226 points of your wounds.
You heal yourself for 160 Power points.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with Whirlwind for 659 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 84 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 235 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 563 points of Morale.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with Rend for 659 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 92 points of Morale.
Dúrchest defeated Grimbos.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 210 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 73 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Battle-shout for 155 points of Light damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with Purging Strike for 916 points of Common damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 75 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 217 points of Beleriand damage.
Villieth heals you for 1,608 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Black-axe for 71 points of Light damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 95 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 204 points of Beleriand damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with a mighty melee attack for 916 points of Common damage.
Armoured Black-axe wounds you with Rend for 1,374 points of Common damage.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 321 points of Beleriand damage.
Hurakan defeated Armoured Black-axe.
Sigrorn heals you for 100 points of Morale.
You wound Armoured Black-axe with Default Melee Attack for 121 points of Beleriand damage.
Dúrchest defeated Haleabor.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
Grimbos has been revived.
Sigrorn heals you for 29 Power points.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 98 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 210 points of Beleriand damage.
You have dispelled Corrupt Defenses from Dúrchest.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 478 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 144 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
Sigrorn heals you for 107 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 177 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Grave Wound for 194 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 95 points of Morale.
Dúrchest defeated Sigrorn.
Dúrchest wounds you with Cleave (Distributed) for 2,976 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 233 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 78 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 118 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn has succumbed to his wounds.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 100 points of Light damage.
Villieth heals you for 1,381 points of Morale.
Sigrorn heals you for 85 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 250 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 225 points of Beleriand damage.
You have dispelled Vile Energies from Dúrchest.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 547 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 88 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 344 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 214 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 82 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 176 points of Beleriand damage.
Villieth heals you for 742 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 29 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Cutting Attack for 139 points of Beleriand damage.
Sigrorn heals you for 77 points of Morale.
You wound Dúrchest for 29 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 169 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 178 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 29 points of Common damage.
You heal 226 points of your wounds.
You heal yourself for 160 Power points.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 148 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 29 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Battle-shout for 102 points of Light damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 138 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 42 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Devastating Blow for 299 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 42 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 321 points of Beleriand damage.
You have dispelled Corrupt Defenses from Dúrchest.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Blade of Elendil for 510 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 39 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 171 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 26 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Improved Defensive Strike for 316 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Valiant Strike for 169 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 26 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 208 points of Beleriand damage.
You heal 108 points of wounds of Grimbos.
You heal 197 points of wounds of Hurakan.
You heal 159 points of your wounds.
You wound Dúrchest for 26 points of Common damage.
You wound Dúrchest with Default Melee Attack for 136 points of Beleriand damage.
You wound Dúrchest for 32 points of Common damage.
You heal 226 points of your wounds.
You heal yourself for 160 Power points.
Dúrchest wounds you with a devastating melee attack for 4,103 points of Common damage.

[Rhyaehar]

I found kiting Durchest not very effective to be honest. I prefer tanking him with two tanks, just swapping aggro. A decently equipped champion should be able to tank the adds, though it should be noted it's probably best to (if you have them) alternate tanking between two champions, taking on adds in turn while the other remains passive (to avoid aggro problems).

[Raedwulf]

Please don't post unedited combat logs - they take an awful lot of space up, whilst adding very little. I've just edited out most of the heal lines, which are utterly useless (and not been able to resist the temptation to bold just one defeat line... ;)), and it's still way too long & full of repetitive dross. If you (and that's a general "you", not a Hirion-specific "you") have scanned the log to see that there is data of value in it, then post those individual data lines. That means lines that give a clue as to min / max damage being inflicted or received, including those by special attacks, or self-healing by a mob (if that actually registers in our logs), or other bits of information of interest. If you haven't scanned your own combat log, then you damn well shouldn't be inflicting it on the rest of us! ;)

[Haleabor]

Hey...no fair...how come i'm the only one highlighted as dead :(

Hal x

[Grimbos]

Cuz highlighting all my defeats would be a task in itself ;)

[Hurakan]

OK, so his corruptions give him boost to damage reduction and outgoing tactical damage? He does not seam to have many tactical based attacks and removing corruptions at all times does not look too critical to me here, what am I missing? :)

[Raedwulf]

That his distributed attack probably counts as tactical? That he has big area flamey-stuff on the floor attacks that are certainly tactical? ;)

[Hurakan]

That his distributed attack probably counts as tactical? That he has big area flamey-stuff on the floor attacks that are certainly tactical? ;)

Yep the area flamey stuff is clearly tactical, I have the feeling the cleave is not though, how can we check for sure?

[Raedwulf]

We can't. Unless someone knows better, or wants to muck about with their tactical mitigations & get hit a lot to check damage ranges beyond doubt of natural variations...

[Rhyaehar]

I blocked a cleave at some point, so I'm guessing it's melee.

[Hurakan]

I blocked a cleave at some point, so I'm guessing it's melee.

I remembered evading one actually at one of the earlier raids now that you said it.

[Hurakan]

It was real fun tonight the second try on Durchie :) Instead of getting aggro as previously I got the threat debuff up to -70% at one point :) Great work guys!

[Raedwulf]

As noted, I think we have the tactics for Durchest now. The proof will be doing it next week, and if we're successful, we'll try HM again after that. Next target is making it through to next bosses... :shock:

I will try to update the Guide a bit further soon...

[Haleabor]

Some information about the Gaunlet....might be spoilery so....


This morning, LiuTsieng posted a brief explanation on how the gauntlet system for Barad Guldur is supposed to work. After the bug fix for the gate issue in this area, some things have been adjusted.

We don’t do a great job of communicating the way the gauntlet works, so here’s what’s happening in that pic:

 — You have 40 minutes from the time you kill the last two armored guards at the end of the gaunt let to kill Durchest with out having to reclear the gauntlet.
 — 39 minutes after you’ve killed those guards, you’ll get a warning message. Some thing to the effect of, “You hear the sound of reinforcements in the halls, they are coming..“
 — A minute after that warn ing mes sage, you’ll receive a mes sage stating some thing to effect of, “Reinforcements have arrived, this is your last chance.“
 — At this point you’ve had 40 minutes of free attempts on Durchest. Any current attempts will need to be finished up, after which the gauntlet will reset.

If you’ve been try ing to prevent a respawn of the gauntlet, you’ll see the situation in that picture. Simply walk to the entrance (you don’t need to leave the instance, just walk to the door). You should see the front gate raise, an instance bill board indicating that you will have to reclear the gauntlet, and then the gate should lower.

This is why most groups aren’t see ing this. If you kill Durchest before the gauntlet timer is up you shouldn’t notice a thing. If you consistently attempt Durchest with every one dying and then reviving at the entrance, you shouldn’t notice this. If for some reason you do though, walk to the entrance, let the gate raise, then lower, then reclear.

Hope fully if you’ve been having some issues, this will clarify things a bit.



Hal

[Daphne]

hm dont think its a spoiler as we already noticed yesterday that the gauntlet didnt restart immedeately ... we just were not sure if this was working as intended (which the above post confirms) or whether it had bugged it somehow ... but it is nice to know that we have at least two tries at the boss without having to run the gauntlet of doom ... again!

[Dairos]

Just a couple of notes about the gauntlet from a minstrel:
- The poison that steals morale after a timer is not too dangerous; the one that increases inductions can be a killer. I try to keep my pots just for those.
- Apart from the inductions from poisons, we are getting a lot of healing delays because of small hits from goblins. Nothing too hard but sometimes people will die because of us being slow.
- I now it's hard to notice, but when melee people fights uruks we find lots of times that 4 in our group drop to half morale at the same time and you have to decide who to heal. The tank will probably survive another hit but if he dies then there is a wipe so you can't risk it. In my opinion, melee people without aggro should try to get away from the area until getting more morale or risk death ;)

[Rhyaehar]

but it is nice to know that we have at least two tries at the boss without having to run the gauntlet of doom ... again!
You have 40 minutes from the time you kill the armors at the top of the gauntlet. At 39 minutes, you will get a warning message. At 40 minutes, the gauntlet resets. They should have fixed the bug that kept the gates up in the last patch, but you never know with Turbine...

[Gorli]

You have 40 minutes from the time you kill the armors at the top of the gauntlet. At 39 minutes, you will get a warning message. At 40 minutes, the gauntlet resets. They should have fixed the bug that kept the gates up in the last patch, but you never know with Turbine...

Actually, if somone runs back when you have wiped after those 40 min, he can run back with no gaunlet up but come to a closed gate. To fix this, all must run out of the instance to get that gauntlet spawning again...

[Rhyaehar]

Which should have been fixed, if you had bothered to read everything you quoted.

[Anaeth]

Hmm. This thread is quite long now so i hope I didn't miss a post when i scanned it.

The method with stun-pulling the sorceror seemed to work fine (or it was pure coincidence :s ) to control the size of the mob. It was also my impression that this seemed to reduce the eyeballs we got as well. Together with that fact that they have a corruption that comes and go this must mean something. I think it would be interesting to see what happens with the eyeballing if we first stun a sorceror, wait until the stun wears off and spank during the corruption-period then restun and repeat.

A thought with the wargs can be to try to use huntertraps to see if it can prevent it from having the hidden special attack. If the theory about stunpulling holds it could be worthwhile to have a hunter traited for in-combat traps to prevent that a warg gets pulled before sorceror is.

[Fanna]

As noted, I think we have the tactics for Durchest now. The proof will be doing it next week, and if we're successful, we'll try HM again after that. Next target is making it through to next bosses... :shock:

I will try to update the Guide a bit further soon...

I'm not sure we would have killed Durchest using this tactic if we only had two healers. The dps output towards the end was very big on a few people and a few more deaths and it would only have gotten worse.

I'm still in favor of trying to kite him towards the end, especially if you only have two healers.

Fanna

[Raedwulf]

The method with stun-pulling the sorceror seemed to work fine (or it was pure coincidence :s ) to control the size of the mob. It was also my impression that this seemed to reduce the eyeballs we got as well. Together with that fact that they have a corruption that comes and go this must mean something. I think it would be interesting to see what happens with the eyeballing if we first stun a sorceror, wait until the stun wears off and spank during the corruption-period then restun and repeat.

It's not a corruption; it's a combat effect. Once it's up, it stays for the rest of the fight. Next time I try the stun-pull, I'm going to hang around at the top of the stairs for a while. If the effect comes on even when stunned, then I'll rejoin the rest of you. Otherwise I'll try to keep him hors de combat for as long as possible.

[Hirion]

Otherwise I'll try to keep him hors de combat for as long as possible.
Carefull with that or violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds will be prohibited - according to Art. IIIa of the Third Geneva Convention. Sort of a hassle when you really want them dead. :P

On a more serious note, I feel quite certain that besides the ordinary kind of daze immunity, the sorcerors also have a removable corruption version.

[Raedwulf]

Ummmmm... What? You seem to be saying that they have a removable and non-removable stun immunity? Which makes no sense at all. They, along with several other mobs in DG (e.g. the Shadow Guards), have combat effect buffs which, from the mechanic point of view, are exactly the same as the Champion's Red Haze skill. Once it's on, it stays on, expiring x seconds after combat. The base amount for all buffs of this type (including RH) is 9 secs.

This is the reason why, before you start a fight, you see buffs disappear from mobs. After 2-3 secs, they reappear, disappearing again after 9s. That's where my window for the stun pull is. If that buff comes on the sorcerer during the fight, that is it; no more stuns, mezzes, roots or fear; end of story. The only thing that works thereafter, from an LM p-o-v, is Rising Dawn. I forget whether it actually stuns, but it will interrupt an induction skill, and was used successfully to that end a few times on Sunday.

[Rhyaehar]

The Sorcerors have a corruption on them that toggles on and off, just like the armours do, as long as they are not in combat. Once they enter combat state, you will have to remove it yourself. If you go for a stunpull, wait till the corruption is off, then stun. While stunned he will reapply his corruption too, so be on your guard.

[Derigar/Tarinas]

Yeah, from what i recall it was a corruption that just seemed to appear on a fairly regular basis that needed to be removed before stunning could be done. Also, did wonder if the wargs were targetable after another pull had lured them into combat?

[Gorli]

Which should have been fixed, if you had bothered to read everything you quoted.

I dont think you got my point. I did read it, but I was just confirming that they Havent fixed it.

[Rhyaehar]

http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=315856
Known Issue Barad Guldur
In specific circumstances where Players defeat the first boss of the instance at the same time the gauntlet is resetting (taking longer than ~45 minutes total to defeat the first boss) the gate will close and fail to reopen correctly.

Suggested Workaround: After defeating the first boss your group should immediately claim and distribute all loot and disband the raid while still in the instance. Once everyone is outside, reform it under a new leader. When you re-enter the instance you will have the correct lock and will not need to fight any trash mobs. The gates will function correctly from this point forward.

[Raedwulf]

And the bad news is... Unannounced, they seem to have tweaked the gauntlet & it's now about 20% harder again. We got through it at the third attempt, I think. Durchest doesn't seem any different, although we lost control of him after the last of the adds, and he suddenly started one-shotting people last night, which finished proceedings.

On the subject of which, I'm wondering whether one or both of the GDNs had caught one of those -100% threat debuffs without realising it? It would explain why it was impossible to get hold of him again. Also whether Od got one of the raised threat buffs, which might explain why he got unexpectedly one-shotted for the the first death of the fight...

[Hirion]

On the subject of which, I'm wondering whether one or both of the GDNs had caught one of those -100% threat debuffs without realising it? It would explain why it was impossible to get hold of him again. Also whether Od got one of the raised threat buffs, which might explain why he got unexpectedly one-shotted for the the first death of the fight...
As far as I can see there is actually little rush in the Durchêst fight - yes he has the Impending Doom (+ melee damage buff) growing, but it seems unlikely that we will get him down before it reaches its peak (around +170ish procent) anyway.

So anyone not supposed to get the attention of Durchêst -the way he hits toward the end probably no one but the two main tanks- should stop attacking the second they get the growing threat debuff from one of the adds; toss in some threat reducing even, if possible.

It's a pity we only got one attempt, as I felt confident we could make it despite the first being a wipe; alas time and resets did us in.

As for the Gauntlet I've got no clue on the pattern of spawns as of yet, but I do think that in a fight like that us missing a second captain (yes yes I count myself among the delusional people thinking their class is always the most missed:P) did make a significant difference. I know it couldn't be different, I know it can be done without, and I know that a lot can be said about unorthodox group-balances - but it is just that extra oil in the machinery while dragging us up those stairs.

[Haleabor]

Dairos and I both agreed (after we'd finally got the top of the stairs) that the healing required during the Gauntlet was majorly intense (that with trying to keep buffs up, fearing stuff and healing squishy burglars who kept getting "Uruk'ed" !!) More intense than the Durchest fight that followed anyway (not much we can do about 1 shots)

Extremely fun though!!

Hal

[Raedwulf]

As far as I can see there is actually little rush in the Durchêst fight - yes he has the Impending Doom (+ melee damage buff) growing, but it seems unlikely that we will get him down before it reaches its peak (around +170ish procent) anyway.

We won't. This is why I keep saying things in raid like "Steady as she goes", just to try to keep everyone calm & unpanicky. ;) It's a long fight. The only dps race is despatching the adds as quickly as possible. Even that probably isn't absolutely necessary, so long as the kill is quick enough to not have multiple guards out at the same time (which is possible). But it helps, I think, to have the minimum amount to focus on.

As for the Gauntlet I've got no clue on the pattern of spawns as of yet, but I do think that in a fight like that us missing a second captain (yes yes I count myself among the delusional people thinking their class is always the most missed:P) did make a significant difference. I know it couldn't be different, I know it can be done without, and I know that a lot can be said about unorthodox group-balances - but it is just that extra oil in the machinery while dragging us up those stairs.

I have. We've basically got two tricky parts, one at the start, one moving off from Pause Corner. After that, it's all down to patience & judgement. Some of the mob groups are scripted, but many of them are random, I think, so there is never going to be a very well defined pattern to work from. Exciting, innit? ;)

As for the CPT bit, yeah sure, find me a second CPT, it makes life easier. But we can still do it with one, and do Durchest as well. Try next week's raid - at the moment I've 9 signed up, FIVE of which are GDNs! :Y _O_

[Hirion]

Even that probably isn't absolutely necessary, so long as the kill is quick enough to not have multiple guards out at the same time (which is possible).
Is this linked to time or damage progression on Dûrchest - 'cause I don't recall getting them as close as last night and wondered if it was related to us AoEing Dûrchest while killing the latest add? If so, it shouldn't be a problem.

Try next week's raid - at the moment I've 9 signed up, FIVE of which are GDNs! :Y _O_
Heck, I should sign in with my warden then! 8-)

[Raedwulf]

Is this linked to time or damage progression on Dûrchest - 'cause I don't recall getting them as close as last night and wondered if it was related to us AoEing Dûrchest while killing the latest add? If so, it shouldn't be a problem.

Don't know & don't care, to be honest. All I know is that on one of the earlier runs, at Someone's insistence, we didn't kill the first guard. Sure enough we eventually had a second come out.

Heck, I should sign in with my warden then! 8-)

Good. I'll need a group healer! :P

[Gorli]

Try next week's raid - at the moment I've 9 signed up, FIVE of which are GDNs! :Y _O_

I think I pass signing up with Gorli then :D
Good luck and hope you are figuring the gauntlet and durchest out soon.

And about the gauntlet...
The gauntlet havnt changed a bit since the last patch. All uruks comes when they are supposed to on their scripted places

[Raedwulf]

The timings have changed. Every time we tried it on Thu, we had a second Uruk come down the stairs almost immediately after the first, which wasn't happening before. And I never said anything about "since the last patch". Something has been tweaked, possibly in the last Hotfix, which came after the official Patch. I can't remember whether we've run DG since that Hotfix came in, but something has definitely changed.

[Rhyaehar]

Is this linked to time or damage progression on Dûrchest - 'cause I don't recall getting them as close as last night and wondered if it was related to us AoEing Dûrch
It is related to add killing. The more adds you kill, the harder he hits.

[Hirion]

It is related to add killing. The more adds you kill, the harder he hits.
That I know; it was another question I was raising. The timing of the adds spawning - which I think is related to damaging Dûrchest. I other words getting adds too close after each other is something we can probably control.

[Rhyaehar]

I suppose. We just turn all save the tanks on the adds once they pop up, so I haven't seen two adds at once yet.

[Hirion]

I know this thread might soon turn very much to fresh impressions from the second bosses in this place (hurrah if I might add - and a great run). I however thought I'd sum up what we know on the Black Guard, so as to perfect our path from Dúrchest to the Shadow/Flame bosses.

Note that there are also Black Guards in the lobby and in the Dúrchest fight which I suspect to be a little bit different from these three.


Armoured Black-Axe
Attacks: 360 degree area attack with a knockback.
Debuffs its target: Traumatic Wound.
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m155/ulisterius/ScreenShot00448.jpg

Armoured Black-Mace
Attacks: frontal area attack.
Debuffs its target: Non-threatening.
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m155/ulisterius/ScreenShot00449.jpg

Armoured Black-Sword
Attacks: Cleave attack - a Distributed attack on the tank. No other AoE.
Debuffs its target: Frail.
http://www.raidsrus.com/forum/attachment.php?attachmentid=97&d=1263248096


With this in mind I suggest:


Killing Black Swords in a given pull first. If a tank is left alone with one they take considerable more damage (the Distributed), whereas the more people there killing it, standing close to the tank, the less healing is needed. The more so with the tank often having ZERO armour.
Killing Black-Axes last, because the more people close to them, the more damage they do, plus the more people will be tossed all over (which can be a liability with clouds and/or potentiel yet un-pulled enemies nearby). Drag them to a corner away from anyone using inductions.
Black-Mace somewhere in between - preferably with two people on them even if we're currently killing the other Black Guard in the pull - so as to be sure that they don't run all over whenever the current tank has his threat wiped; either killing healers or doing collateral damage with their directional AoE.
To be added: maybe something on vulnerabilities? Will refer to the lore-masters, but I would suspect Westerness is best if one has the choice in which damage type to use.

[Eiyja]

I agree totally on killing the black sword first of all, they are the most dangerous. And I agree with the rest aswell ;) Something we have been good at avoiding lately and that we did <wrong> on early runs is to fight axes and swords side by side.. that is a lethal combination.

Some thoughts on our first attempt at the twins of shadow and flame then from my limited point of view..

As I was merely focusing on the shadow fellow I cant give too much input on her fiery twin, so I won't. This is what I learned from the Shadow:

*when engaged in melee she kicks every 4 or 5 seconds wiping all the aggro on her target (might be possible aoe effect.. can't really tell at this point but at least the tank is getting it). The aggro-wipe is illustrated by a debuff icon which runs out very quickly, 4 seconds or so.

*apart from the aggro wiping effect, the kick also causes heavy damage. 4-5k or so. too early to say if it is direct damage or a "leaving aura effect" although we speculated it might be the latter.

*randomly puts up debuffs on different raidmembers who then suffer from a debuff that counts down 4 or 5 seconds and gives -4k morale at expiration <nasty> The debuffed targets also get an eye icon hovering over their character.

*puts up corruptions on herself that each add +10% tactical damage.

*gets a soul reap buff when lands a killing blow on any raidmember. tooltip vaguely suggests that "soul reap- makes her stronger" - not sure if it affects her outgoing damage or if its "just" a healing buff like the one Durchest has.

*best tanking effort in terms of survivability was done by Fanna and Dairos, our two minstrels who managed to survive way longer than the heavy melee people (me included). Worth noting that this brave effort was performed from ranged distance and thus they were not affected by any kicks or possible enter/exit aura damage effects.

*we also tried to shieldwall a hunter from the very start of the fight with the intenion of letting the hunter tank her from range. it failed because she immediately rushed into melee range and kicked both the GRD and the HNT. why did she rush the hunter but remained out of melee range when targeted on MNS?? Must she first be engaged by someone in melee to make her stand still when she later switches targets? or is it because MNS and HNT create different kind of aggro (tactical healing vs ranged damage)??? thought; If let MNS tank via healing agro with a GRD shieldwalling the MNS maybe that is a way of avoiding the kick/aura damage???

conclusion from this first impression; the kicks with aggro wipe effect come in at too fast a pace for conventional tanking to work. Apart from that, every kick causes up to 5k damage.. sometimes more... and if that can be avoided it would be good. Using taunts (at least frequently) is out of the question as she aggro wipes at a faster pace than two, maybe even three, rotating tanks could keep up with in terms of taunt cooldowns. So I would like to suggest further experimentation with some kind of ranged tanking. Shieldwalling a healer or ranged class being one possablility - then remains to work out what makes her stand still in one place and only attack via her ranged spells (as she did so on Dairos/Fanna <MNS> but not on Hurakan <HNT> ).

[Hurakan]

Thought I should give some thoughts and ask a few questions as well:
- I think we should try and have nobody in melee range of the Shadow one most deffinetly, big question here is how to prevent her getting in melee range of the person who "tanks" her. Ymriel, did you manage to get aggro on the Shadow one and if yes, did she come in melee to you or just casted, same way as she did with the minies?
- This one is pretty obvious, both should be kept seperated.
- More ranged attackers should help since, the fewer people in the fire aura would mean the healers will have less healing to do. That fire DoT does 675-750 fire damage every 6 seconds.
- Were the eyes leaving shadow and fire pools as the Sorcerers' ones? I don't have any pools on my screenies, but the eyes look to have pretty much the same effect?
- Oderid, did you manage to interrupt any inductions on the Fire one?

[Hurakan]

Eiyja, I am wondering if you shieldwalling me had something to do with her running to us? Wouldn't it have been too easy if this worked? It also seamed that the range of her "bolts" is far shorter than my range, perhaps I should have started the fight closer to her, what do you think?

[Baro]

Observations:
-Fighting the shadow- dead within 15 sec

-Fighting the flame, last man standing.

-I did addle a few inductions on the flame, also saw my addle miss

-The fire aura seems to be steady, I ran out of the aura to wipe it a coupple times, but it had more the effect that I could heal up without taking damage.

-What killed me both times I fought the flame was a timed damage debuff, but it only did like 3k damage, so with the timer it should be possible to run out of the aura and heal enough to with stand it. I could not clean it with any potion.

- The left bracier was lit all the time.

-And at one point Hirion said something like: "the ranged should stand inside the fire- aura shooting the shadow to make more damage", what did that meen? Was this based on some observation?

-Even though we needed a breather after the half dousin deaths, maybe we should head back in with these locks?

[Raedwulf]

I'm not going to post a load of screenies, but summing up those I grabbed...

Corrupt Defenses - Corruption (68) -10% damage (all types). Carried by Durchest. Hasn't appeared on the New Twins yet.

Vile Energies - Corruption (68) +10% tactical damage. Buff stacks. Carried by Durchest, Morgaraf, and Cargaraf.

Soul Reap - "This creature has gained power from someone who fell to shadow". Carried by Durchest and Morgaraf (probably identical wording on Cargaraf). Known to heal @200K on Durchest.

Shadow of Doubt - Fear (68) 20s duration, 4-5K damage on expiration. Believed to come from Morgie only. Note that it should be removable. But not with a 65 pot! Also listed - +100% to all damage types (incoming, presumably), -100% incoming healing, -60% power cost (not quite sure what that means). Visible marker - purple eye (surprise, surprise).

Chastising fires - 10s duration @2.5K damage on expiration. with love from Cargaraf. This is not a wound & cannot be cleared. Visible marker - green eye.

Finally, I got a Knowledge off on Cargaraf, but not Morgie (Hmmm... names for these... He sounds like an Archibald, frankly. So far she's just Bitch!). He is Average on all Effectiveness / Resists, Good on all mitigations bar Westernesse (only Fair).

Responses to other minor points:

Spectral Guards - I do have a Knowledge for the Black Mace, also a couple of the earlier ones. So far, it has consistently been the case that Westernesse & Light (Hunters please note) are their weakest mitigations. I see no reason why the axe & sword should differ.

The New Twins eyes - did not, as far as I could see, leave any clouds / pools behind.

Missing skills - All skills appear to be capable of missing. The New Twins are, after all, L68. I had Knowledge & Anti-corruptions both miss, as well as debuffs.

The braziers - significance entirely unknown at this point in time.

[Rhyaehar]

The braziers - significance entirely unknown at this point in time.

Very uninteresting spoiler:
Not a damned thing. Used to start the fight.

[Daphne]

Some random observations and speculations before I forget them again aka: wtb a better memory please!

Shadow of doubt - lvl 75 pot worked like a charm, also presumably captain removal so if you deal with this one fast it shouldn't be a problem.

Archibald does the same sort of 'you run around feared like a headless chicken' as the third boss in Sammath Gul, haven't observed it from his bitch yet though I think someone mentioned that she did it as well .. Hirion also said something in the end about 'you can control the direction you run in by angling your camera'.

Tanking her .... might it be possible for a guardian to 'range-tank' her by using fray the edges and tauntshout and otherwise trying to stay away from her, and if she runs up to the tank smacking her one and moving away again? And once she settles on a target (probably minstrel, or some ranged dps) to nuke steadily go and shieldwall that target? That could maybe avoid the aggrowipe & heavy damage of her nova which she really spams at the start, and her bolts aren't too terribly fearsome (only about 2k damage).

Also with an eye on eventually killing them both at the same time (I know probably faaaar in the future) it might be a case of splitting the dps so the ranged nuke the bitch and the melee go hit him? Though maybe once she has settled on a target to nuke from range she stops doing the nova which would make it safe around her for melee.

[Daphne]

Very uninteresting spoiler:
Not a damned thing. Used to start the fight.

Not those braziers .. the ones on top of the bookshelves on the other wall .. there is 6 of them unlit before the fight, and once the fight starts the first one lights up.

[Raedwulf]

Honestly, Rhy. How would we be discussing the fight, if we hadn't worked out that you light those two to start it? :+ :P

[Rhyaehar]

Why would you put a guardian on the Shadow boss? I know it's the initial response, I've been kiting her pretty much every time. But why don't you use the ranged people to do so. Two hunters should be able to alternate tanking, throw in a RK or two and you've got corruptions and DPS covered. From experience: the only difficulty is finding a nice kite path.

[Fanna]

Why would you put a guardian on the Shadow boss? I know it's the initial response, I've been kiting her pretty much every time. But why don't you use the ranged people to do so. Two hunters should be able to alternate tanking, throw in a RK or two and you've got corruptions and DPS covered. From experience: the only difficulty is finding a nice kite path.


Well, she didn't 'really' have to be kited. When I had aggro she followed me around a bit when I got close but for the rest she was quite stationary. When Dai got aggro she was completely stationary.

I think she needs to get off her first attacks before allowing anyone to tank her from ranged, it would be nice if the tanking guardian next time tried to run away every now and then to see if she follows. It would also be nice if a hunter could try to get the aggro off the minstrels once she's stationary, just to see if she charges the hunter.

Do not put two tanks on the Shadow, a minstrel can't keep up with healing in the long run as the 5k mini punt is an AoE and happens too often to get both guardians up to full life before it hits.

Also, the shadow deals pretty much no damage to people far away, while the close people get pretty bad aoe damage, if the fire is the same then we should maybe all stand far away and pew pew them to death instead of standing close?

[Daphne]

well that would really badly reduce our dps though (as guardians, captains, champs and burglars kind of have to stand next to their targets) and also the fire guy doesnt have any close range attacks equal to her nova damage (and hopefully he doesnt have any more nasty surprises in store for later stages of the fight *crosses fingers). Also does she still do nova once she has settled on a ranged target?

[Raedwulf]

Why would you put a guardian on the Shadow boss? I know it's the initial response, I've been kiting her pretty much every time. But why don't you use the ranged people to do so. Two hunters should be able to alternate tanking, throw in a RK or two and you've got corruptions and DPS covered. From experience: the only difficulty is finding a nice kite path.

Because it was the very, very first time we'd reached them? Because we only had one hunter (and no warden either)? And we did try ranged tanking. And kiting her. But the first didn't work, and on kiting, she booted & de-aggroed the tank and turned on the minstrel. And didn't move thereafter.

[skelsamu]

so where are going to split up oure raid next time?
one group rangend dps,agrro,debuffing the shadow
the other group close/melee range by the fire one debuffing,dpsing and tanking sort of?
think that's the point of hm
*or bringing the shadow one to 20k first then nuke the other one till they are togehter down* like the rift twins.

can the fire dot be interupted/stopped?
or we need to tank him in turns so the dot dissapears?

[Raedwulf]

Thanks, Skel. Lots of unanswerable questions. Especially the first, since I have no idea what we'll have, and we've got to make it back up there first! :P ;)

[Rhyaehar]

Because it was the very, very first time we'd reached them? Because we only had one hunter (and no warden either)? And we did try ranged tanking. And kiting her. But the first didn't work, and on kiting, she booted & de-aggroed the tank and turned on the minstrel. And didn't move thereafter.
That's why I said "I know it's the initial response" Bosses require a tank. Turbine decided, in their infinite yet dubious wisdom, we now need to kite, despite their previous attempts to crush any previous abilities to kite bosses.

The first part doesn't surprise me. It took me a good few attempts before I figured out a good way to kite her, with repairs bills and wipes to match. Things should improve once that daft Hounding Fear has been removed from the game, as that is one of the most common causes of being caught in her AoE hit. That one is supposed to temporarily decrease your threat (-100% perceived), but I think it's bugged, resulting in a complete threat loss on those getting hit.

If you ever have two or more ranged DPS (LMs don't count :P), ranged kiting should work. A single hunter cannot keep up with the healing if he/she can't stand still to shoot. Two or more ranged DPS should be able to alternate kiting between them. Keep in mind though, she should move to people who have aggro.

The second part does surprise me. I've not seen her standing still for a long time, bar one point in the fight which I will not spoiler here.

[Eiyja]

glad to hear Im not the only one to suspect there are benefits of ranged tanking on the shadow twin ;) it does seem she is way more lethal in melee combat.

was it possible to interrupt the fire twin? does she animate visible induction cirkles? or is it those new kind of inductions that you can only spot by following her body movement?

Interrupting stuff is FUN I really hope this is one of those fights *giggles*

[Fanna]

well that would really badly reduce our dps though

I prefer to kill them slow over it taking weeks for us to kill them at all :)

Dunno though, maybe it doesn't work and the fire one goes haywire if not enough people are in close range.

The second part does surprise me. I've not seen her standing still for a long time, bar one point in the fight which I will not spoiler here.

Well, she did, and I'm firmly against spoiling at all, be it small or big things ;)

Fanna

[Hirion]

Carried on from the raid sign up (http://www.raidsrus.com/forum/showthread.php?p=14186&posted=1#post14186):

@Eiyja: I don't think the problem was the speed of damaging Dúrchest.

The problem was solely that a couple of people that should have been in front of Dúrchest kept hanging behind him. It left threat management hanging by the nails for the entire fight + it left the tanks to take a hell of beating because we were often only two people taking our part in Dúrchests (Distributed) Cleave attack on them.

@Fanna: For the same reasons your problem healing Hurakan was not Hurakan being in the wrong spot it was Hurakan being exactly in the in the right spot, but others missing there. And it got worse over the course of the fight as we got more and more sloppy. At first we only took about 1k from the Cleave attack, but toward the end this got close to 6k. This cannot be explained by the Impending Doom melee damage buff he gets (which tops at 178% damage), but by the fact that a lot of people were not carrying their part of the burden.

I even suspect that Dúrchest might in fact not do a lot of frontal AoE besides the (Distributed) Cleave, but further investigation will be needed to assess just how much. I also need to have a closer look on how Distributed damage works, specifically the Cleave, as I noted some strange things by having my combat log open while we fought him (sometime I would stand right on top of the tank as Dúrchest did the Cleave yet I didn't get the damage). I want to know if there's a max number of people who can share it or whether it only shares to members of the same fellowship as the current tank.

I would also like to obeserve on these elements: is the spawning adds random or specific types (saw Maces and Axes last time but I don't recall whether Swords have been there in the past) in specific orders. Secondarily I would like to see if the Gaining Threat debuff is one all the different adds apply on those fighting them or whether it's only one or two of them doing that.

[Hirion]

Suming up several posts here and in the latest sign up thread I suggest the following for the Dúrchest fight. Much of it is already practice, but with shifting team members it might need to be reiterated:


A spot should be agreed upon (wall or corner) which Dúrchest should always be in/facing. Any one getting his attention should move there immediately. And stop attacking if they're not meant to actually tank him.
Any heavy or medium armoured character attacking Dúrchest should ball up in front of him in said spot.
Two tanks should rotate tanking (think Nornúan/Filikul) timing their threat debuff timers (BRG Provoke / CHM Ire might be used just as with Nórnuan).
Only off-tanks / tanks out of rotation should be behind him (or perhaps even better simply hang further back untill their debuff is gone and they're stepping in to take over tanking).
Light-armoured DPSers (RNK and MoNF LRM mainly) should pace damnage carefully. They will not be able to take part in the threat debuff in front of him and as such they can easily get ahead of the shifting tanks. Depending on how the Gaining Threat debuff of the adds works they should possibly not attack them at all (as doing so, getting the Gaining Threat debuff, will also increase their existing threat on Dúrchest).
If we have a third tank we should consider not having him take part in the fight on Durchest at all, but hang back to pick up and tank the adds (again because getting the Gaining Threat from the add will also increase existing threat on Dúrchest - this would allow us to tank the add without Dúrchest keep running across the room).
Last put not least - bunch up on the yellow patches for the (Distributed) fire attacks and watch your fear debuffs (if ignored they will one-shot you when expiring).

[Eiyja]

good sum up Hir. I think you are more spot on than I was and those explanations you offer are probably the causes for our failure :D
I think the 7 points above are just the way to do it and we should work just like that the next time!

[Raedwulf]

I don't. Now what? :P

;)

More seriously, these may be improved tactics, they're not the only ones that work. We know that because we've beaten him before, and not by fluke. There are always several ways to kill a boss. Have you forgotten Bill & Ben already? There are two totally different ways to deal with them. We tried The Other Way a couple of times, and it never remotely worked for us. It doesn't make our way of doing things invalid, any more than it makes the other way of doing things invalid. Please don't be quite so didactic about how we do things. Unless, of course, you're volunteering to lead... ;)

[Hirion]

Please don't be quite so didactic about how we do things.
Alright I'll refrain from anymore suggestions for now. But what's the idea behind the entire concept of doing it our way if we're not discussing our observations and building possible best practices from them?

We've nailed Dúrchest several times. Great! It is without a shadow of doubt that we can do it. But we should be moving forward from knowing we can do it to knowing we'll do it mostly everytime; through working out exactly what we're doing right and what caused us to fail the times we didn't kill him. The Gauntlet is fun, but it is not fun if we use most the night on it simply to get back up there to fight Dúrchest over again. Even less so if it discourages us from going back up there and attack Dúrchest untill we get him because time is running late.

I did include a 'suggestion' in the top of my previous post and that is all that it is, but this thread is full of words and I do find it usefull to boil some of it down to possible practices. I was intending it to be methodical, not didactic and I'm sorry you read it that way.

Nor am I claiming that it is the only way to fight Dúrchest, but I think it is one way and I think that is better than having no battle plan.

[Raedwulf]

You've misunderstood me. There is a difference between what you've pointed out, & Eiyja in big bold letters saying that this is how we must do things in future. It is Eiyja's post, not yours, that my reply was principally pointed at.

There are many ways to solve problems, in game and out. The way I choose is only one way, and it does not render other ways invalid. I don't like people laying down the law that there is only one way, whether it is my way or another...

"I think the 7 points above are just the way to do it and we should work just like that the next time!"

"Unless, of course, you're volunteering to lead..."

Since you never said the former and the latter, given that you already lead, doesn't apply, what in my reply is talking to you?

:P ;)

[Dairos]

About the twins:

- Shadow one stayed still while being range tanked by my autoheals. In fact, everytime any melee tried to attack, they got hit by the nova thing and died even if aggro was still on me (I think). I had 1040 tactical defence (3.9%) and didn't dare to stop healing myself as I was fast falling behind otherwise. Probably tolerance would help there.
- What hurakan said about guardian shield or too long range seems like a good explanation for what happened the first moments of fight.
- Interesting the observations about shadow of doubt. Thanks our pots are lvl 75. Some of the debuffs look like actual buffs. I'll try to pay more attention next time.

[Eiyja]

guess I got carried away.. ait I withdraw my bold statements :D and change it to;

I think the 7 points above are just the way to do it some of the times when and if the RL tells us to do it just like that.

I think all seven are good valid points in Hirions sum-up. And yes you are right, Raedwulf and I know that lol. 12 people can not lead it has to be the RLs job to call the shots. Sorry again, just got excited about finding the "best way".

[BSili IronMight]

25th February Raid >>

That was good first Boss.. there were times where Eiyja and Myself wouldn't get the -threat debuff for long periods but others would get it instead due to presumably having quite a few stood in front of the Boss...

Worked too good towards the end when there were no adds because it meant I was hitting him in the butt a lot and we never had to swap aggro :P

Just gotta remember to leave couple of people with the current Tank on Boss for the damage when adds are around.

Just some random observations >>

Armoured Black-Mace: (I think it was Mace anyways :P Presume so as he already been said to give the non-threatening debuff earlier in here and make sense that he's the minus threat mob) He seems to randomly attack anyone nearby every now and then (aggro or no aggro), he has a punt that seems to wipe aggro, he also stuns Tank which in turn allows others to overtake aggro by time you come around (especially when combined with all the other -threat stuff he does).

Armoured Black-Sword: Just on the Frail Debuff (gives person 0 Armour) hurts alot might be worth having a Champ taunt the Mob.. the taunt would last as long as the debuff.. is also a panic moment for any secondary healers to look after the frail person :D Just a case of noticing the debuff and panicing :D

Armoured Black-Axe: Traumatic Wound set my morale from 9k+ to around 5k, maybe treat like Frail debuff someone taunts him off for a bit of time.. less chance of killing person with the wound..

P.S. I'm sure some of you thought of some of this before but worth mentioning it again

[Hirion]

Armoured Black-Mace: (I think it was Mace anyways :P Presume so as he already been said to give the non-threatening debuff earlier in here and make sense that he's the minus threat mob) He seems to randomly attack anyone nearby every now and then (aggro or no aggro), he has a punt that seems to wipe aggro, he also stuns Tank which in turn allows others to overtake aggro by time you come around (especially when combined with all the other -threat stuff he does).
He does a frontal AoE for certain and I suspect his threat debuff is linked to that attack - if that is the case it might partly explain his erratic choice of targets. I'm not sure the attack wipes agro as such. But does set your Percieved Threat to Zero (or -100%) for 5 seconds. I believe that after those 5 seconds your threat will not be gone but be at its previous level. But then again I'm not entirely sure on the distinctions between threat and percieved threat. Ultimately two people on one of these, one on either side, while the rest might be killing a Sword or another Mace elsewhere, might keep it controlled. However, I'm not too terrified of these. They might be difficult to control, but unlike the other two they cannot kill you quite as fast - in fact even if they turn on someone unintentionally chances are that their own threat debuff will prevent them from killing that person before moving on.

Armoured Black-Sword: Just on the Frail Debuff (gives person 0 Armour) hurts alot might be worth having a Champ taunt the Mob.. the taunt would last as long as the debuff.. is also a panic moment for any secondary healers to look after the frail person :D Just a case of noticing the debuff and panicing :D
Frail is nasty, but I think the times where these have gotten really lethal have been when the tank have been alone with them. Frail + taking the full brunt of the Distributed cleave-attacks are a killer. With at least two people on them besides the tank that shouldn't happen. I would like to see though, next time in, if only the tank gets the Frail or if the others hit by the (Distributed) Cleave do as well. I think these are the deadliest to tank alone which is why I suggested, three pages back, to kill these first.

Armoured Black-Axe: Traumatic Wound set my morale from 9k+ to around 5k, maybe treat like Frail debuff someone taunts him off for a bit of time.. less chance of killing person with the wound..
Harsh, but like with the Black-Swords I think it is not the debuff alone that kills the tank. With the Black-Swords things were easier if you are more there together with the tank - it is the reverse with these chaps. You will need quite a bit of healing, but the moment the full raid is on this one they all need healing (because of his full 360 degree AoE), which will strain healers more. More so if we also have someone fighting/tanking another enemy at same time adding more and more people needing healing. So killing them last will put less pressure on healers and consequently less risk of anyone going down.

However when we are all on this one, since it doesnt matter which way they face -all getting chopped anyway regardless of position- we might as well send him twisting and turning as you suggest.

One thing though; I think it is important to remind healers of this debuff when facing them. I know for myself, that when healing (especially when things get rough in a raid), I am more focused on the green morale bar than the number in small writing within. That way it easy to presume the tank to have more morale than he actually has - especially when a lot of other people need healing - and you might dare put a heal on someone else with the tank at 75% morale, not realising that he has the Traumatic Wound and that 75% might actually still be just two attacks away from a defeat. Which again is another reason I suggest killing them last - because if killing them first you need to not only heal all in this one's AoE, but also have to heal those tanking the other Black-[weapons].

[Raedwulf]

One thing though; I think it is important to remind healers of this debuff when facing them.

Wrong. :P It's not the healers' job to watch out for stuff like this, it's each player for themselves. Good TS discipline, remember? "Eik has frail" - now everyone knows I have a problem. It's also up to "me" to determine whether or not I can actually remove myself to a safer vicinity until it wears off, too.

Same thing with fears, with eyeballs, etc. There were comments about this last night, something along the lines of "people need to be more responsible about watching out for their own fears", after the Durchest fight. Inevitably, the better players are those who are more aware of their surroundings, rather than being mindless button-mashers waiting for someone else to tell them what to do / where to go / fix their problems for them. ;)

[Dairos]

About Axes.
Healing the whole group from being damage at the time would not be so difficult if we were not being punted once and again; the day we got 2 axes at the time roughly 20% of my heals were being succesful.
We probably need to work a bit more to improve where we fight them so we can still heal.

[Hirion]

For those with a visual bend here are some of the various debuffs I've picked up along the way while we were fighting the 'twins'.

PS: The Residual Heat seems to cap at 50%.

[BSili IronMight]

Aye Residual Heat seemed to cap at 50% from watching my own stuff.. but presumably you never want it to get that high I wouldn't have thought.. healing probs etc..

Just to clarify when it says +20% Tactical Damage.. it actually means +20% Incoming Tactical Damage? and when it says -20% Melee Damage it actually means -20% Melee Damage from yourself? (maybe just confusing myself here with wordings :P)

The Fire Aura appears to be the thing that when you enter starts to give you the Residual Heat.. I wonder if entering it and leaving it has any other effects like with Infernal Heat...

Vile Energies Corruptions.. would make sense to remove them as often as possible so not as much damage on everyone..

Infernal Heat is an interesting one... did the value of this change and if so how? Linked to Aura?

Chastising Fires - I believe this is the Green Eye one that we decided was one of the boss Soul Reap moves? When that expires you get the Total Threat Loss debuff.. and this happend to me a few times :D

On to the Shadow stuff which I didnt know about till I saw your screenies as I dance with fire one ;)

Shadow of Doubt seems really nasty.. I take it its not removable?

Also a thought occured to me based on Warg-Pens instance, can't remember if I proposed it in raid or if I thought to not mention it till now.. there are fires giving off aura all over the place.. mainly used for vs Frost Wargs cause of the debuffs they give you.. but you can use them to also burn through shadow debuff from the Shadow Warg (or at least it appears this way unless its not intentional).. so anyways the thought was if you get the Shadow of Doubt was wondering if you ran into the Fire Aura if it got rid of it.. Cause thinking about it the Shadow boss appears to hurt alot more.. whic is kinda why you burn yourself in Warg-Pens if you have shadow aura as the shadow aura is bigger damage...

[Hirion]

As a clarification these pictures are not from the last visit, but the previous -and first- visit. I stayed in the fire aura to check the debuff and that is both why I know Residual Heat runs to that much, but also knows it shouldn't run any further. That is unless some event later in the fight raises that cap.

Concerning how to read it I wasn't entirely sure during the first visit and I recall it being discussed. If, and that is a big IF, Turbine's buff tooltips are consistent, than anything without an 'Incoming' in front of it should affect what you do to others and not the other way around. Again it is a big IF and I would not be surprised if we someday find an 'Incoming' added in front of these buff wordings.

And in a way it does make sense. The longer you've been up close and personal with Morgaraf the less damage you do - making it worthwhile for melee fighters to run out and in for that reason alone. And for the same reason we did at time (first run again) have ranged/tactical DPSers in his fire so as to do more damage.

Concerning Infernal Heat, then I have screen shots of two versions of it. One where it ticks 599 morale every five seconds and one where it ticks 1.087 every five seconds. I have no other pictures of it so I have no knowledge whether there are several stages of it or just those two - nor do I know the exact reason for the difference except presuming it clicks upward just like the Residual Heat to higher tiers the longer you've been in the aura.

Finally - Shadow of Doubt is removable (as a fear debuff). also notice how Shadow of Doubt supposedly double's your damage just after you've been hit with the expiration damage. Interesting concept.. Though again, I would not be surprised if some of these tooltips are simply sloopy and inconsistent in differentiating outgoing and incoming.

but you can use them to also burn through shadow debuff from the Shadow Warg (or at least it appears this way unless its not intentional)..
That is news to me. Must make sure to check it out next time I'm there.

[Daphne]

Some observations on tanking the shadow bitch:

As noted before she mostly does 2 regular attacks: the ranged bolt which hits for around 2k+ (depending on shadow defense & number of her corruptions obviously) and the shadow nova 'get away from me' which does around 8k damage, a knockback, an aggrowipe? and I've at least once observed a debuff from her (though not sure on hindsight if it was from a nova as how would I have survived that hmmmm) that gave a -100% threat for at least 10 seconds (she has decided that you aren't a threat and turns elsewhere or some such was the text).

It seems that if you stand outside her nova range, but well within her bolting range she will stay stationary and just bolt away at you - and that damage can easily be healed even on a hunter/runekeeper/minstrel. Whereas if you get too far away she tends to run up to you to try and nova you.

I tried to kite her on of our last attempts by running through her whenever she came up, but died twice to nova as I either reacted to slowly and/or got hounding fear so could not get clear of her nova radius. Now if a kiting approach is made for here I would suggest trying running in a kind of triangle ... and not to delay running at all whenever she gets close. This tactic has the advantage that aside from some weak melee attacks (hit for 600 damage on fabric) she is pretty much out of commission, as she just chases after her target, but it is not really possible to damage her much & there is always the danger of getting caught in a nova (so for kiting a tank might be preferable, especially a warden maybe).

On the whole I think that the 'stand at the correct range and take some boltage' approach might turn out to be the best tactic as she can be damaged that way (2 ranged dpsers took her down at roughly the same speed as the rest damaged Mr. Fire guy). Melee classes moving in even when she is tanked at range can still trigger the nova effect though, so champions could try and do aoe damage from their maximum range while waiting for a fire debuff to go away, but I wouldn't really advise it for any of the other classes who have to move in even closer. Also the person tanking her should stand between her and the rest of the raid, so its possible for the minstrels to reach both parties.

[Dairos]

About the shadow sorceress. We checked two strategies:

- Range tanking. If you stay at the correct distance whe she comes she will only range attack you all the time with shadow bolts (she only moved when the player with aggro got too far from her and the shadow bolt casting was interrupted).
We were not well placed the other day and I could't heal most of the raid but if we just stay on a line from her we'll be able to cover all players (it was a fine job by Fanna).
A healer has to be on the tank all the time but would ocasionally be able to heal other players (once each 3-4 attacks) as she always do special attacks on people without aggro. I could have healed Hurakan all the time but I made a mistake (because I was losing lot of time trying to heal people out of my range) and the two last heals were place on the eagle.
Shadow bolts ranges was 1014-3921 morale (average 2399). My tactic defense was around 3040 (10,5%) rating and my shadow defense 1888 rating (16,2%).

- Kiting. Hurakan and Ym's kiting was incredible. Getting away from range interrupts her shadow bolt casting. Aggro is easy to keep as almost no heal is needed. The problem is that shadow nova range is really big and sooner or later she killed the kiters (last time because of an extint hounding fear).

[Fanna]

Does she have a dot that increases constantly when someone is inside her aura? (Like the fire one has). If not it would be nice to try putting a guard on her for the whole fight and see if they can handle it more safely than ranged tanking her.

Fanna

[Daphne]

She does not have any aura at all. The close range damage from here is purely weak melee attacks and .... that really nasty shadow nova which she will do quite often (every few seconds if someone is next to her). And that nova does enough damage to even put a tank in trouble, though they are more likely to survive it, and require hideous amounts of healing.
The suggestion for kiting by tank/if kiting at all is purely because as mentioned a tank can usually survive one of them unless she has built up way too many corruptions.

[Fanna]

I tanked her for about 90% of the fight when we just killed the twins :)

Mass healing myself with help of Sil did the trick. Rhye started with tanking but lost aggro to me quite quickly and never managed to get it back until a while into everyone banging on the shadow boss.

Fanna

[BSili IronMight]

Just as an extra note that I clocked (probably been clocked before) on the 'Fire Twin'.. coming out of Fire Aura and waiting for all Flame debuffs to go instead of auto swapping aggro (tanks)/coming back in (all other melee) when the Residual Heat is the only one gone.. helps alot with incoming damage.. as Infernal Heat seems to start low again... and that can do 1k fire damage every 5 secs for 45 secs so nice to reset it to its lowest damage..

With tanking just make sure to come out of Aura when your on 20% on the Residual Heat still facing Boss regardless if the other tank ready or not.. that way you lose the Residual Heat and when the other tank has lost the fire debuffs they'll just go into melee and take over.. just wait till other Tank up to 20% and you lost your fire buffs to take over again..

One big problem that was noted is that a lot of skills seem to resist alot of the time.. I was unable to get aggro back to me numerous times for skills like Engage, Challenge and Challenge Darkness failing and Giladren said only about 1/4 of skills worked for her.. since this is happening probably best to slot Guardian's Threat.. but as long as the person with aggro is going in and out and losing the debuffs when they meant to its not too much of a problem..

[Rhyaehar]

Rhye started with tanking but lost aggro to me quite quickly and never managed to get it back until a while into everyone banging on the shadow boss.

Sad, but true. The Shadow Nova attack seems to completely reset threat, where as it's visual debuff only indicates perceived thread loss. Once people started attacking, I had threat to leech.

[Fanna]

Sad, but true. The Shadow Nova attack seems to completely reset threat, where as it's visual debuff only indicates perceived thread loss. Once people started attacking, I had threat to leech.

Not a bad thing per se. As long as I and Sil kept me alive you could even have joined in on the fun with the fire guy.

I'm not saying that it is preffered, but I never had a feeling I'd die. I can't say as much with you tanking when I was alone with healing (with Sid it went fine).

Fanna

[BSili IronMight]

Thought i'd post some Final Fight Observations before they leave my brain:

All Phase 1:

*Green Eye.. one of the effects is if you let the boss hit you while you have the Green Eye he leeches alot of life back with each hit.. so its basically a leg it round the outside till its wore off move.. During this time others run alongside the Boss hitting it, presumably if your ranged you'll be better off staying in middle within range of everything... Try not to be directly behind him as seems to be more likely to get hit with tail..

*At some point he flies and when he comes down he will leave a Shadow Pool.. so when he lands stay clear till he moves out of it... This makes the running round more interesting when you have to avoid the pools too :D

*One move he stops faces one way then does a left to right shadow flame spray... when you see this and you close to him all you have to do is move out of the way of it to one of his sides.. or if your ranged back up a bit.. SO whenever he stops still presume thats what he is doing and move to side...

*Another move that I noticed was what seemed like some kind of stun move to those in melee range that affected 2 or 3 people.. this seemed to be the thing that was killing most of us... cause he seemed to do one or two attacks on these people under the stun effect that cause big morale loss.. (wonder if this is anti-stunable) also guess its something for all healers to watch for.. Might also be some kind of indication its coming so we all get out of melee range although didn't notice if there was...

All Phase 2:

Havn't a clue because I dc'd still in Phase 1 came back within 3mins or so and everyone was dead. AGggggggghhhhhhhhhh :D

What people said was he unmounted and cause people had died he'd been bufffed tonnes and basically walloped everyone with in a very short space of time :P

P.S. I remember looking at the Buffs he gets in Phase 1.. something about been Immune to Lore-masters Power taking Skill and can't remember what the other one said :D

Anyhoo that was fun but was surprising on first go that we didn't die quickly... never feels right when its a new boss if you don't die quickly :D

[Daphne]

The first annoying bit I noticed was the: 'There is NO in combat power regeneration - icon'... and of course as mentioned he is immune to Loremaster manadrain which makes this fight very interesting powerwise ... aside from 'everyone better get addicted to power pots' one thing that does work to regain power is the captain banner where you regain it upon hitting him ... which still leaves the minstrels in the lurch though.

I think on this boss you want a bit more in the way of ranged dps then we had though - (pretty much only my RK) as having to try and hit a moving target in melee that also uses its tail to swipe at whatever is behind it ... ugh. Oh and all that while dodging an increasing number of pools of fear. So having 2-3 hunters/RKs would probably make this easier.

One thing that might be really worthwhile to figure out is if there is a reliable way to influence where he lands? (and puts down yet another pool of wobbly purple stuff of feary doom of course)

Oh ... and I am positive the designers of the trash to clear on the way up must have chuckled at one point: zoooombies! Really fun fight that though *laughs* And we thought 4-5 of them was a big pull already!

[Raedwulf]

Replying sequentially to Bsili & Daphne...

I thought the immunity was actually listed as immune to Knowledge of the Loremaster, which I thought was a bit odd, but I only glanced at it briefly. However, I definitely repeatedly tried PoK and it doesn't fire, which is a right pain! I can't remember what the other buff was either, but it was one of those blue shield-type icons, such as the goblins in Dolvenview have (the ones that buff themselves with corruptions, rather than the ones that stun you). I did take a few screenies of various things.

The green eye lasts for 30s and he regains 10K each time he hits you if you have it. He shouts something along the lines of "That one looks tasty", which presumably precedes it. I caught it a few times in the second attempt. What I noticed was that if you ran away quickly & as far as possible, he generally didn't chase you immediately, and then had a lot of distance to cover, so evading him wasn't too much of a problem (if very, VERY necessary!).

The shadow pool (Descration, I believe it's called in the Combat log) does about 1000 Shadow damage to me (Light armour, no Fidelity); the Shadow breath is about 1500. I am going to insist that, in future, everyone slots Fidelity past the 2nd bosses. Almost every fight contains shadow damage, and there's no reason why anyone's Fidelity should be less than 10 on a Main. For now it's optional earlier in BG, but I'll review that over the next couple of raids. I also do not want to see anyone carrying Justice at any point in the raid any more. There seem to be one or two Heavies still with it on - it is an utterly crap trait. The iCMR & Mor boost are insignificant, and the oCMR is the single most pointless buff on any Virtue. What you choose to do outside of a raid is no concern of mine, but in it, lose Justice. If you're short on ideas as to how to fit Fidelity into your traiting, read The Virtue Guide (http://www.raidsrus.com/forum/showthread.php?t=422)for some ideas. It's slightly out of date, but I'll try to amend it in the next couple of days.

When The Naz unmounted in phase 2, he was carrying an awful lot of Soul Reaps. From the look of it, I'd say this allows him to make a single powerful attack. I forget what it was called in the log, or what he was saying when he used it, but he hit me for something over 4K of damage done. He seems to use it freely if he has the Reaps and, of course, more or less every time he uses it, he's going to replace the Reap he uses (if I'm right).

Yes, there is no power regen at all; yes you are all going to need to be carrying a full stack of power and healing pots - you need to take as much responsibility for your own healing as possible - Minstrels are going to have a hard time, with power in here at a premium. You regain a certain amount of power every time you hit the boss, so if you run low on power, you can still auto-attack him to recover. If we can trust whoever is running to manouevre sensibly around any clouds, I found the best way of tagging him was to run sideways facing him around the area of his legs. It kept me away from his tail & his breath, and out of the clouds. If you lose position, try to run away, rather than get clobbered by the tail. It worked well enough for me last night; perhaps next time we will have to have one MNS doing the same while the other heals & see how it goes.

Ranged dps - hindsight is a wonderful thing! :P Having no hunter at all was not actually deliberate y'know... ;) And yes, knowing whether or not we can influence his landing zone would be good. I have a strong suspicion that it will be rather indirect at best, if we can. He certainly wasn't following whoever had the eye.

Lastly, I was very pleased to hit the 2nd phase on our first visit (especially with Bsili getting lazy... again... ;)), & I have a few ideas already... But as always, I prefer to let you folks discuss, and when I need to, I'll make some decisions. Plus I'm at work & need to do some! Later... ;)

[Anaeth]

does work to regain power is the captain banner where you regain it upon hitting him

Banner of victory as well as Tactic:Focus, increase the ICPR - In the specific fight ICPR is set to Zero which means that both the banner and the Tactic:Focus is useless. Power regenerating food is another thing as Raed remarked during the raid, it does not increase ICPR but instead gives you <nnn> amount of power and then <nn> power every <n> seconds for <n> seconds. This is also the same effect effect that Morskor had on his positive debuff. Maybe Raed or Hirion can upload them.

I think some hunters with a good traiting to conserve power and give back power when critical hit, would be a nice addition to this fight.

[Hirion]

First two pictures: Effects applied on us by the Limrafn lights encountered in the '3rd gauntlet'

Third picture: Effects on the Lieutenant/Fell Beast.

Fourth picture: The effect on all of us affecting our power.

Fifth picture: The effect of the Green Eye put on one of us.

[Hirion]

First picture: The effects on the Lieutenant as he lift his steed. The middle one, perhaps one of most interest, definately looked to be a removable corruption.

Second picture: An add that joined the fight alongside the Lieutenant and his Fell Beast.

[Raedwulf]

Ah, yes, of course! The other effect was the reflect power effect. Which, it is nice to note, lasts for 15s once you run away, so it may be enough for the lighter classes to run in & make one attack, or possibly even use one low power tactical, e.g. T1 ballad, every so often.

Is that the full text box on the Choking Shadows?

[Rhyaehar]

Power regeneration buffs and banners are useless in the Lieutenant fight. The Banner of Victory's only use in there will only serve to add some max power. For this fight, you're better off with War or Hope. ICPR is set to 0, nothing will increase it. The power regeneration upon hitting the Fell Beast is the only way (besides pots) to regain power.

[Hirion]

One thing I didnt capture was the power buff on us when we had hit the boss - though you can read it out of the effect on the boss that I did post - however it is a PoT (? *chuckles*) so hitting him a few times till you get the PoT and then withdraw works well.

For a lot of the time none really needed a lot of healing during the first phase, and I found no trouble both healing and running under his wing suckling his power .... taps; all the while still healing. And with it being a PoT one only really need to engage, wait 'till you see the PoT icon (a little bluish cross on white) and then fall back to support from a distance.

Mostly people either needed little healing, allowing me to stay clear of my biggest, but also most power-consuming heals, or they took soo much damage in one hit that nothing could have saved them.

As to concerving power - yes people really need to use pots as often as possible. Athelas too, as it reduces the drain on minstrel power. Food is good too, clickes another option, traiting to allow power-returning skills or similar. From a minstrels point of view I had a lot of use of actually being in the blue trait line for both power consumption and heal/power ratio and with a conserved use of skills power was not a terrible problem once we'd setttled into the fight.

And I know I've in the past said that some of the full (5) set armour bonuses from the DN class sets were boring because all they did was offer a discount on power costs. I recant!

Last but not least I'd so love to try having my hunter there. Not only because of the ranged combat, but because if you use a 4-blue trait build (which I happen to love and adore) then you will never run dry of power. With the right legacies you might not even need much healing either.

[Hirion]

Honestly the total lack of ICPR (including the Banner and the Tactics: Focus) was already eastablished during the fighting last night - let's move on. :roll:

And yeah, that is the full text Raedwulf. I'll be curious to see how often he reapplies it etc.

[Hurakan]

Any ideas if Bow of the Righteus will work here? If it does combine it with the trait for -20% power cost in Endurance a book for -12% power cost, Press onward usable in combat (4 blues) + pots and I have a really hard time imagining how a Hunter would run out of power here :) oh, and we now have the power bonus on Beneath Care which thanks to a legacy I can now use each 3 minutes :p

[Raedwulf]

NB: Note on discussing traiting for the Nazgul - remember you've got to fight your way through to him first!!! ;)

[Hirion]

NB: Note on discussing traiting for the Nazgul - remember you've got to fight your way through to him first!!! ;)
Yeah I'm thinking that for those classes where something is very useless on the previous fights but very needed fighting him the plot will be to use the in-raid bard.

[Baro]

I really enjoyed last night, it's a rush when we pull of tactical manuevers like fighting the wights down the corridor..

As for the powerdebate, I spent most of phase 1 (the time I was alive anyway) underneath the nazgul and I think I hit it quite a lot, and my powerbar was at full all the time. It really regenerates fast if you hit it.

[Hurakan]

NB: Note on discussing traiting for the Nazgul - remember you've got to fight your way through to him first!!! ;)

That bard in the instance is quite useful ;) What I plan on doing (and have done lately) is trait for less threat up until Durchest is dead (graceful draw + stealthy shot), equip hightened senses for the wargs, then change to a more strength based approach for the twin fight (4 blues, 3 reds as I hate the longer inductions) and probably do atleast one more in-instance retraiting before Khamûl (put graceful draw back in) :) Since that bard is there, why not put it to some good use :)

[Raedwulf]

If the bard is there. Was he actually there last night when we returned? I don't recall seeing him. I know the quest givers were absent.

[Hirion]

I'm certain I ran past him at some point - on the stairs before Dúrchest.

[Rhyaehar]

Having run with the tactics for two weeks, I've seen a few points which can be improved in my opinion. For the moment, I've only collected my thoughts on the tactics used in the Gauntlet, I will think about that later.

Currently, the prime targets in any attack wave are Wargs, followed by Uruks. Goblins are lowest priority, often being allowed to continue their attacks for two or three waves. Not a very efficient way of handling the Gauntlet if you ask me (which you haven't, but I will say it anyway). Goblins by themselves are not very dangerous, their damage output not too high. Allow them to stack up however and things go wrong.

We're often too busy attacking a newly appeared Warg to bother with the little annoying buggers. All too often, they never get hit at all, meaning they will turn to Minstrels in a heartbeat. In additions to the poisons that slow inductions and movement, they also tend to hurt a lot, roughly 500 to 600 damage a hit on those squishy types. While they get pummeled by the goblins, we're too busy hitting an Uruk or Warg that just appeared.

While I agree on the Wargs being a prime target due to the debuff they give on the howls, the Uruks most certainly are not high priority. Their AoE attack is powerful, yes. This will hurt a tank, but not kill. A decent minstrel can easily outheal that within a few seconds. Focus on the little buggers. Gank them, kill them quick. Stop them hitting the minstrels and other light armours. The Uruks will be perfectly allright tucked away in a corner with a tank, just make sure the squishy types aren't positioned nearby.

Killing Goblins first is also better for relocating to a different room or corner. It is far more efficient to drag one half-dead Uruk to the next room as it is to drag four goblins along with you. Uruks are melee only, so they will follow you to where you want them to be. Goblins on the other hand need to be line of sighted into following you, they are also prone to inductions and other annoying stuff that slows their relocating.

One last thing of note: Do not suddenly switch targets to a random warg that just joined. Kill what you were killing first. It means one less enemy hitting someone, less scattered healing for the minstrels.

Bottom line: Prime targets are Wargs and Goblins, Uruks come last.

[Gorli]

I think that during the gauntlet you just have a balance between killing the uruks and getting on the goblings. If you only kill goblings first ( after the wargs) you will from time to time end up with 3-4 uruks at one time. This is up to the raid leader to decide when to kill off goblings and when to get on uruks. All classes that can do AoE damage should do it. That will prevent any goblings to turn on minstrels..

[Raedwulf]

Having run with the tactics for two weeks

Yes, and both times the gauntlet runs have been messed up by circumstances outside of my control. The first week was a combination of the game being shitty in terms of the numbers & timings of mobs it was throwing at us right at the start plus, on one or two of the 4 or 5 false starts, the raid not doing things in the way that they should have been & shouldn't need reminding of by now (e.g. letting the Uruks get to the bottom of the stairs). This week, two perfectly good & smooth runs (in fact the first one was looking very good indeed) were completely screwed by DC's immediately after Pause Corner, which is just about the worst place for one to happen.

Not a very efficient way of handling the Gauntlet if you ask me (which you haven't, but I will say it anyway). Goblins by themselves are not very dangerous, their damage output not too high. Allow them to stack up however and things go wrong.

Which is why I don't allow them to stack up. They only start to become a nuisance once there's 4 or 5 of them. I'm not hanging around for 1 gobbo when hanging around is potentially going to bring another wave of Uruks & Wargs down on us. Last night things had already gone wrong. Which is why they stacked up. Not the other way round.

All too often, they never get hit at all

Rubbish. They're always getting hit because of the amount of AoE around the place. See also below.

Their AoE attack is powerful, yes. This will hurt a tank, but not kill.

And when a second & a third Uruk turn up, because we're too busy chasing gobbo's who won't stand still, and haven't killed the first one? And when two Uruks then do that attack within a second of each other? And catch not only the tank but several other party members who have wandered into range because they're chasing gobbo's? This has happened before.

Uruks are melee only, so they will follow you to where you want them to be. Goblins on the other hand...

Yes and the flip side of that coin is that you can't tank gobbo's properly & gather them all up in a nice neat little group. They've got this irritating habit of running off all over the place when they feel like it. There goes your quick kill with mass AoE that you kept asking for last night. I'm perfectly happy to kill the Uruks first, because there's usually gobbo's in AoE range getting hit. Plus half the time, I'm finishing off damaged ones or stunning fresh ones, while the party gets on with what they know to do, so they are not being ignored.

One last thing of note: Kill what your RL tells you to. He's perfectly capable of telling you to finish off the current mob if he thinks that's the best course of action. And did so more than once last night. But I do want a fresh Uruk or Warg picked up by someone and taken to the killing zone, if appropriate. Not running around loose.

Bottom line: I don't doubt your tactics are perfectly valid, Rhy. Maybe I'll give them a go. But our tactics also work perfectly well. And when "Circumstances beyond..." crop up nothing's going to go swimmingly, is it? ;)

[Hurakan]

Just want to put a couple of things I believe went wrong last night and should be good having these sorted out:
1. 2 dedicated people to stay with the tank in front of Durchest at ALL times, these people should know who they are and what their role is, we should not relly on people having enough common sense, we should name them and have them stay there to help with the Cleave as this is what kills people.
2. A dedicated person to tank the adds (drag them to Durchest or whatever). The person should KNOW what his/her role is and make sure to pick adds as they come and before they turn to a squishy as this creates a bit of havoc with people running around too much.

I felt failing on both accounts is what screwed us last night.

[Tiermond]

I know I haven't been to DG much recently but as I recall Goblins can be stunned, riddled or feared and as a last resort enraged, unless you have more than 4 I wouldn't have thought they should take precedence.

[Silirien]

Bottom line: I don't doubt your tactics are perfectly valid, Rhy. Maybe I'll give them a go. But our tactics also work perfectly well. And when "Circumstances beyond..." crop up nothing's going to go swimmingly, is it? ;)
*facepalm*
Our tactics got us through gauntlet in 20 mins without any death. Repeatedly. I don't think yours ever did.
Your tactics gets goblins piled up even without people dissecting or lagging. They hit squishes for 450 up to 600, ranged classes can't finish their inductions with the bastards on them and all it would take is to group that trash away from Uruk and AoE.
Running towards Wargs and treating them as primary targets is mostly useless - their howl has a cooldown and they use it as soon as they engage into combat. What does work on that (sometimes) is CCing them (mez, stun, fear), they sometimes forget to howl after that. But once they howled, they are less annoying and less deadly than the fking goblins.

[Raedwulf]

*facepalm*
Our tactics got us through gauntlet in 20 mins without any death. Repeatedly. I don't think yours ever did.

How would you know? You weren't raiding with us till 2 raids ago. And that is all I'll say here.

[BSili IronMight]

I just want to add something about the Gauntlet that maybe our Champions or other heavies should possibly look out for.. during the Gauntlet at either the front or back say the current Tank has an Orc to deal with but then a second one comes along just at the point for example that a Minstrel is healing you and you find your taunt was resisted and your initial attempt to hit the Orc missed etc... immediate aggro has then shifted on to Minstrel..

In these situations would be helpful if another Heavy would immedialty take it off Minstrel (so when call of another orc comes you'd watch make sure its been picked up if not pick it up and take to Tank).. the issue here is not that the Tank can go in and get it but while doing so the first orc is been brought into fight and hitting tank from possible odd angles and possibly having range on others including the Minstrel as he has been turned.. and also the 2nd one getting hits in on Minstrel..

Also.. when things are been positioned please don't hit them till they are next to the tank ;) You can notice this by the tank wandering to some where away from the Orc and stood there waiting for it to come :D (think this only happened once but still annoying :P)

[Dairos]

About icpr and the Lieutenat.

I didn't realise you got a power hot after hitting him; so even when running after the fell beast all the time, hitting it with the mace, and getting some tail attacks, it was not really difficult to keep up with power. Singing a damage ballad from time to time will be enough.

About the DN set.

The 5 part set bonus is really nice, but the most radiance you can get if using it is 100+25(30) = 125 (130). As gloom is 150 you will fight under 2 dread all the time in the best of times. Boss dread goes up in some fights, as we have experienced, so getting down to -3 dread or -4 dread starts reducing your skill levels. So this is something to think very carefully about.

[Derigar/Tarinas]

Skill level is completely class dependent. I can't comment on other classes on that short trip from 60-65, but i can say that the base healing strength of a minstrel during this time does not change at all. All changes come from will and legacies at this point. So in terms of healing, anything up to skill effect -5 will not impact the healing of the group in this singular regard (morale levels are of course a different debate entirely). Other classes may chime in with similiar remarks about their experiences, as i really have no idea beyond this.

Oh, assume DP hope on top of that too :p

[Dairos]

Yeah, I know that our healing base has not changed from 60 to 65 and that's why I wrote about "thinking carefully" as it doesn't affect us as other clasess.

I love changing gear depending on circunstances (for instance to keep the most appropiate tale and still keep 650 will) so I will also try to get 5 pieces of the DN set for the bonus set and use it/not depending on circunstances.

But for learning BG and while things can still go wrong I think I'll always prefer more radiance as it increases my survival chances and power it's not usually a problem with the trait and some ranks in the LI legacy. And we still have HM waiting for us.

[Dairos]

After yesterday's tries on the twin bosses in BG, just a couple of ideas:

- All went crazy when the shadow sorcereress changed target and charged the group in the middle, specially targeting the minstrel (it happened two times and, if I'm no wrong, it also happened for a while the first time you killed them). I could have done much better to reduce my aggro (critic lute strings and the song) but I had not had this problem before and so I didn't adjust accordingly (in fact I was more worried trying to check the fire guy rotations so nobody died this time). I will in the future. Call to Greatness on warden would have also helped if I'd stayed in the same group as warden.

- The fear eye debuff you get in the first phase is dispellable with pot/Muster Courage. Many people were running to the corners, which only matters later.

- Somebody asked about resistances. They increased mobs resistances in last book even if they didn't document it. You can check the following link for more information (it's an official post so no risk of spoilers in the first message; keep reading at your own risk).
http://forums.lotro.com/showthread.php?t=320848
In fact, I’ve wondered a couple of times if minstrels should put the Echoes of Battle Swords on bosses, not for the dot but for the cry debuff, which would help tanks with aggro.

[Silirien]

Dairos, you have been targeted because the Warden had aggro wipes due to being hit with Away With You - if he gets hit, nothing will help the healers until whoever is tanking her gets aggro back up (hit = aggro wipe).

Rhy has reported yesterday both small lag spikes and her casting Away With You almost instantly. Why she does it instantly we don't know, but I suspect that her mechanics might be bugged a bit.

[Dairos]

That makes sense, thank you.

It's a vicious circle really hard to break: tank gets the shadow nova damage and aggro wipe --> we heal big time to compensate the damage --> we get aggro in the middle of range people/healers --> several deaths ----> players feared (one of the two bosses, not sure which one, fears people after deaths) ----> more deaths ---> more fears ---> wipe :(

The problem with the "away with you" attack is that you have to run a medium distance from her. If too close (and I was pretty sure I was far enough when I died last time -but radius is huge) you get the attack; if too far away she interrupts the shadow bolt and charges you.

[Rhyaehar]

I'm pretty sure it was the small lag spikes. I didn't tank her any different as I would normally. Whenever she did a Shadow Nova however, I got hit as soon as I saw the message, where normally I can easily walk away. Either it was lag on my side (ISP or PC), or server related. Given the recent trouble on the server with lag spikes, I'll blame it on the last.

[Raedwulf]

I would agree it's their side too. I don't normally suffer from lag, but I was getting it consistently through Stage Two last night. Trying to keep a sorcerer stunned is a bit of a mare when your screen stops for 1 in 5s, and you can never be sure it's going to start again in time!

As to resists, I've not noticed a major problem with it on Ang, not least because I've a pretty uber book. I had no problem with corruptions on Dirk, either. Last night, the Bitch was just... a bitch, and the lag-spikes were very real, very much CM's fault, I think, and not helping any of us!

[Hirion]

Concerning Dûrchest

Up until now our strategy has worked fine on regular mode, but we're still falling short when attempting Challenge Mode. I know marginals, luck, and lag will also play a part, but I also want to suggest again that we reconsider how we tank the adds - especially when doing the Challenge Mode; with the increasing damage done by Dûrchest the more vulnerable the tank gets to being debuffed.

Especially two of the adds can be killers, even if by proxy, if their debuffs hit either a main tank or any of the other people taking the share of Dûrchest's distributed Cleave.

The debuff of the Maces is not a terrible affliction - as all it does is to influence on threat. The Swords and Axes are worse - the Axes having a debuff that sets armour to a flat out zero (10 seconds) and the Swords a debuff that reduces max morale to 60% (15 seconds). Both a nasty cocktail with Dûrchest doing close to +200% damage, easily becoming the first domina to fall, whether the tank or anyone else in the melee fray, or that one thing that collapses the house of cards.

We have been doing quite good on some of they Challenge Mode attempts, and while I expect the difficulty to be increasing the further into the extra adds, then the speed by which things suddenly turn is remarkable.

Now I don't know if these debuffs are strictly applied to the targets of the Axes and Swords only or if they are potentially applied to anything hit by their various melee attacks or potentially applied to anything in melee reach of them - but I'm pretty sure that they do not apply them over range just as I believe it's not restricted to their direct target only. In other words I think we should consider a strategy for tanking the adds a distance from Dûrchest - which with the combination of threat mechanics + various Distributed attacks in that fight might require a bit of consideration.

Hopefully this might in turn make us less vulnerable to those Frail and Traumatic Wound debuffs - which I genuinely believe to be the final nail that keeps bringing us down.

[Rhyaehar]

I can only speak from my earlier experiences in defeating Durchest HM. We never tanked any add close to the boss. All but the tanks (Grimdoin and myself in this case) would just charge for the add, kill it far away from Durchest and run back. The HM we managed mostly by kiting Durchest, which is no longer possible. It should however be possible to get captains in with the tanks, to take some of the distributed blows. Hunters too perhaps.

[Silirien]

Anyone who's not melee (+CPT) and not a healer?

[Dairos]

About Durchest:

- We just couldn't heal through all the damage the tank was getting when adds were also there. In fact, 5th add is usually hard and when the boss has the 175% more damage debuff on, even the distributed attack is hard on healers (I'm really happy with the idea of trying instances with different setups and addapt accordingly; I just want to remember that not having burglar's disable makes the fight harder).
As Hirion said, we really need to get more info about the axe/mace/sword debuff just to be sure of how they work.
- Corruptions on Durchest give him -damage taken and +tactical damage (we have only seen 2 tactical attacks so far, the distributed fire and the lightening shock). So even if lots of corruptions he won't hit harder the melee people.

About the Lieutenant:
- For a minstrel it was not hard getting your power back if using efficient heals and attacking with ballads/PC when the power-over-time buff expired (Echoes of Battle didn't work at all). Next time I will use a harp and a shield without icpr to perform even better.
- I'd like to know how the Fell Beast attacks, so any ideas? (I'll try to nail it next time we're there). I remember 3 moments:
* Breath attack, not hard to avoid
* Chasing the one with the eye (and healing if biting him)
* Attacking others when no eye (I guess that the one highest in his aggro list)
- Some people die from almost single hits so I guess that he resets aggro when flying? In fact we even had our fearless guardian dying when he tried to tank the beast, even if I was chain smahing BC on him. It seemed very hard to heal on guardian so it could have probably single killed others.
- Lieutenant was too chaotic to really say anything. Just that the Fell Beast was the same but on ground all the time and that we had bad debuffs on us all the time. There was a new eye, which looked deathly but not sure what it did.

[Anaeth]

Regarding phase one at lt:

The fell beast has three types of attacks from what I have seen: Breath, Tail and Bite. The Breath can be predicted and easily avoided it's length is approximately half the platform. The Tail and Bite both seems to daze those caught in it, I am not sure if Bite is AOE but Tail is.

As Rhyae said there is a timer active here. The beast seems to pick two targets during each landing-period, one in the beginning and one in the middle somewhere. Each landning-period seems to last about 60s. I am not so sure that the attacktimer is 30s - I measured and a couple of times I only came to 15s so I think there is 3 attacks each landing-period, since in the supposed nr 4 he lifts off again. I tried to stay in melee for 13s intervals, move out and after attack in again and it seemed to work (Mostly :P ).

I also tried to see which attack came where but there seems to be no static function in the timer for those, which makes me believe that the attack depends on the location of the melee people.

I am a bit curious about the aggro of him - One has the aggro and one has the eye. Why? Is it anything we can use somehow?


Regarding phase 2:

Absolutely no good clues yet

[Rhyaehar]

I know that whomever has aggro will not get the eye, as I only got it when I lost aggro for a few seconds.

[Dairos]

We improved a lot figthing the first phase and people needed less and less healing each try.

Lieutenant phase was chaotic, with lots of early deaths that brought those frost wights to us so I think we need to put our ideas in order. Imo it would be good if we try just to survive, not damaging anything or getting close to the Fell Beast for a bit, so we can really guess what's happening there, like the corruptions stuff..

After all these tries, Im pretty sure that the purple eye was responsible for the +4k shadow attacks (the Lieutenant himself hits like a drunk goblin, with devastate attacks of 2200 common damage on light armour). In one of our tries, our tank was fulminated when someone with the purple eye came close to him and in another one, two players, placed on the left and on the right of the one with the purple eye, died simultaneously, while the one with the eye survived. We should probably check this as a priority or everthing else will be useless.

[Rhyaehar]

Success. Hard mode Durchest is done.

Recommended order for adds 6 through 10:
- Center torch (Storm mace, RKs cast Do Not Fall To Lightning at death)
- Right outer torch (Flame sword, RKs cast Do Not Fall To Fire at death)
- Left outer torch (Shadow sword, fears incoming)
- Inner torch (Blacksword)
- Inner torch (Blacksword)

[Fanna]

Wuhuuu, grats!

[Hirion]

It's only a couple of weeks ago that we took down Dûrchest in Challenge Mode several times in a row and now we are back at struggling even getting through the first five adds without defeats on our side - ultimately making it an uphill fight.

I know our magnianmonious Barad Guldur leader is on a most deserved hiatus and us stand-ins need to land on our feet in his place - but at the same time there is no need to let slip on tanking routines that should well in place by now. I know this thread is long and that all has probably been said several times over (as well as some things being antedated by our ingame practices having moved on), but looking at the last couple of Dûrchest fights I feel we need to recap the tanking and placement bit as I believe it is what has been killing us lately. Over and over.

A few things we absolutely must get under control:


Position of Dûrchest: Point out placement in advance. I suggest having him facing the wall or a corner to limit the effect of knockbacks. At all times keep him in the same spot facing the same direction. Anything else only increases the risk that there are too few people (less than Tank + 2) to share the burden of the (Distributed) Cleave or that those in front of him include squishier raid members = both of which most likely leads to imminent defeats. Anyone, and I mean anyone, grabbing Dûrcest's attention moves immediately to this spot and turn him back in the same direction. Also in this spot should be at least two other heavy armour users. Captains are probably a good idea as they are less of a hassle keeping healed than Champions, yet have as much armour.
Position of Armoured adds: Place them away from Dûrchest. They alternate coming from either side of the room, so best just to pick them up and keep them there. Both their various AoE effects/attacks and their debuffs can be anathema to the Dûrchest Cleave-trio or to the support crew. Have at least two melees, fighting on either side of the add, on top of its threat list as some of them do frontal threat-resetting kicks - get unlucky on a kick and one of them will do a rampage into the softer belly of our raid. Ideally adds should be tanked by someone having very low threat on Dûrchest, as some of the adds increase your threat level generally, tanking these adds might in fact make you now appear threatening enough to Dûrchest that he breaks away from his tank to come feast on you - rampaging through the raid.
Tanking Dûrchest / threat management: There are at least two ways of tanking Dûrchest (we know of). Do one or the other - do not try to do both.


A) Two tanks swap when the threat debuff becomes too big (at 40-50%?). The tank not currently tanking stays far back to avoid the odd turn and hit with debuff, waiting for his debuff to subside. Tanks coordinate swapping, with DPS holding back a few seconds to let the new tank settle in - helped by his Engage being followed up by Ire and Provoke from champion and burglars. Can place as many raid members in front of Dûrchest as we feel like (at a minimum 2 besides the tank);
B) One tank tanks Dûrchest for the entire fight. Cleave and the building debuffs are linked, the threat debuffs only building on a set number of people and not spreading to new people unless it is reset on those already having it building. This requires someone other than the main tank grabbing Dûrchest at the start of the fight, with the tank staying back, and that these never miss getting hit by the Cleave/debuff. We've seen this happen a few times, with one tank never getting a high threat debuff and being able to tank him the entire fight. This also requires, as we still had a minor threat debuff on the tank the times we've done this, that anyone doing DPS keeps in mind that the tank will be building threat slower than normal - pull Dûrchest off him once and this threat debuff management is bound to collapse.

[Raedwulf]

magnianmonious


I will magnanimously pass over this gloriously skewed spelli.... Oh. I didn't... :twisted: ;)

I'll also try to do something about updating & extending the Guide soon...

[Eiyja]

read, noted, acknowledged and memorized :)

[Hirion]

I will magnanimously pass over this gloriously skewed spelli.... Oh. I didn't... :twisted: ;)
You'd think someone just walked into a trap. :P

And I know you know Eiyja - but we all need to know; and know well enough not to mix (and mess) it up again.

[Eiyja]

You'd think someone just walked into a trap. :P

And I know you know Eiyja - but we all need to know; and know well enough not to mix (and mess) it up again.

it was good reading and it always helps to get memory refreshed. Yeah, I know the fight but I have also had 2 or so months break from BG raids, so Im glad you wrote it and equally glad I read it :)

[Raedwulf]

You'd think someone just walked into a trap. :P


Tish & pish! Nice attempt at a save, buddy, but that's all it was... :P

[Hirion]

Tanking Dûrchest / threat management: There are at least two ways of tanking Dûrchest (we know of). Do one or the other - do not try to do both.

A) Two tanks swap when the threat debuff becomes too big[...]
B) One tank tanks Dûrchest for the entire fight. Cleave and the building debuffs are linked, the threat debuffs only building on a set number of people and not spreading to new people unless it is reset on those already having it building. This requires someone other than the main tank grabbing Dûrchest at the start of the fight, with the tank staying back, and that these never miss getting hit by the Cleave/debuff. We've seen this happen a few times, with one tank never getting a high threat debuff and being able to tank him the entire fight. This also requires, as we still had a minor threat debuff on the tank the times we've done this, that anyone doing DPS keeps in mind that the tank will be building threat slower than normal - pull Dûrchest off him once and this threat debuff management is bound to collapse.

Version B certainly works! On the last, and most succesfull attempt (seconds short of managing HM :evil:), our tank had ZERO threat debuff for the first 2/3 of the fight.

Having more people in front of Dûrchest is recommended. Three = no threat debuff on main tank + less risk of the debuff system failing (from any of the others not being hit by Cleave several times in a row). Four even less risk of that happening.

Also important to have the rest of the raid stay back at first, or someone not meant to be Threat-debuff-"tank" might get hit as we moved in.

[Kjarin]

First of all, grats on killing him, wether it was EM or HM, he seems to be insanely tough now a days... My kin tried yesterday (while we were in there), and kept failing due to the threat debuff mechanics.

They run in with two off-tanks, who build up the debuff, then when it's build up to about 100% they send in the main tank. They stand on top of each other, to make sure all gets the cleave.
Problem is that when he comes in, one of the off-tanks suddenly looses his debuff, and main tank starts building.
So while Durchest stays there, we suddenly have him beating up an off-tank (usually captain) and not grd. Lets just say that captains don't take his beating as well as grds...

So why on earth does this happen???
Captain gets hit by cleave constantly, which should refresh the debuff, so we simply don't understand it.
This boss is driving us nuts, completely nuts.

[Gorli]

As shown yesterday, even if you have threat debuff and get hit it doesnt always update and in the end you could loose your threat debuff, thus starting to build up on the 3rd person that have -10%. To counteract that that person isnt a tank, have a few more bunched up to reduce the chance that the tank gets the debuff.
Yesterday it worked good with 2 capts, 1 champ and a HNT in front. Then when they have around 30-50% debuff the tank runs in and taking over.

[Eiyja]

hmm I think I posted something that should rather have been in this thread so I quote myself from the raid signup thread:

Huhh-uh. We had two runs where we experimented with the <new?> tanking strategy trying to pin Durchest on one single tank (me) during the whole fight. They went not so good but atleast for me personally it was a new strategy that I had only tried once before and never done it all the way to victory. (well.. still havnt but we got so darn close that I would count this one as a success in the point of wiev of experience atleast) I think we all learned a lot from it cus the 3rd attempt was really good. Having 3 people+tank in front of him helped also I think in those moments (happened twice at the third run) when one of the debuffed people in our raid failed to get hit by the cleave (in comparison to only having tank+2 people there).

The first time when the debuff shifted to me I poppled guardians pledge about half way and it never continued to build. Dont know if the cleave is parry/block/evadeable but if so then pledge helped and if not then the extra person next to me did the trick. The second time a few minutes later when I noticed I had the debuff once again my pledge was on cooldown but I think having three others in his face increased the likelyhood of him cleaving other people than me- as I watched nervously on my debuff timer ticking down it just stayed on 10% and then the timer ran out.. With only me+2 I would most certainly (I think?!?) get more and more debuffs and the ride would have ended right there.

So basically we had survived "the hard part" and we had killed all 10 adds and even survived Durchie´s final special attack that he does after the 10th add.. it was just a matter of killing him off his last 30k or so morale when somehow he manages to kill one of my cleave-buddies.. after that the debuff starts to grow on me and when we approach the 20k mark and I am on -90% perceived threat <shivers> he just tears through the raid and wipes us :( Extremely frustrating to watch.

I bring a lot of positive things out from this defeat though. Before I only felt comfortable with the two GRD swapping agro back and forth way of tanking him.. and now there is a second way also that I only knew half-well before but never really had a chance to do (well) in the past.

The first way with agro swapping between two tanks really requires two guardians (simply because no other class has threatcopying skills and so GRD is the only class who can instantly put him/herself at the top of the threat list). This other tactic requires zero guardians, it just needs a tank - any class- and a few people who are willing to soak up some aoe damage :) (not a big difference all in all as those kamikaze-persons are needed regardless of which tactic the raid chooses)

Reflecting on this and assuming there are two GRD in the raid for future attempts -> All in all I think the one tank system is safer despite the risks of someone accidentally blocking/parrying/evading the aoe cleave when supposed to get hit by it. Two tanks (guardians) who swap agro and swap places with eachother every time one is cleared from the debuff can also go wrong and if that happens there are no lifelines left.. but if the raid were to start with one tank+the cleave-soakers in the front they could still fall back on the second GRD (having no debuffs because he did not have to face durchest until this point) to step in and use engage incase the first tank for some reason is starting to build debuffs.. and that would provide a safety net we would not have if we were to start with 2 tanks and agro swapping right from the start.

Looking forward to beat him in hardmode on sunday and I hope people are (or get) inspired and sign up for sunday so we get a full raid.

Edit; uuups I remembered wrong.. we had not three but four people+me in front of Durchest on the "good" try (aka the third attempt) and it worked great. I just note it here instead of changing the text because 1) I am lazy and 2) three or four don´t really matter.. the theory and the fight mechanics still remain the same.

[Raedwulf]

So I suppose that means I have to double post as well! :P

The first way with agro swapping between two tanks really requires two guardians (simply because no other class has threatcopying skills and so GRD is the only class who can instantly put him/herself at the top of the threat list).

Nonsense. We've been doing this for weeks, including the first HM successes, with a GDN & WDN.

Reflecting on this and assuming there are two GRD in the raid for future attempts

Very big assumption, considering I don't recall having had a viable 2nd GDN option for weeks.

[Hirion]

2) three or four don´t really matter.. the theory and the fight mechanics still remain the same.
Actually it does matter - the more in there the less risk of it ever hitting the main tank. Ironically this is also what clued us in on this as we earlier had tons of people in there, effectually setting up for this, if only the tank came in a bit late.

However there is a balance to consider too instead of just pouring people in there. We still need at least two extras to take care of tanking the adds (two because the maces require two to be kept under control) - or even better three (or someone in light will have to take part in the Cleave of the Armoured Swords, as I had to last night in 'naught but silk...).

But agreed; this has potential. Not to rule out bringing 2+ tank classes if that's what we have, but because a spare tank can step in if the scheme fails. And it will from time to time. There certainly is a link between the Cleave and the debuff but it is finicky and things can go lobside.

[Eiyja]

@ Raedwulf:

you know that better than me, I dont know really how youve been doing it the past 2 months when I have had my break from DG raids, before that it was always 2 GRDs I think..

I didnt think it was possible to do the transitions smoothly without 2 GRD but glad to read that I was wrong, the more options the better.

I assumed some stuff and assumed wrong then :)
__________________

[Gillosi]

Tanking Dûrchest / threat management: There are at least two ways of tanking Dûrchest (we know of). Do one or the other - do not try to do both.



A) Two tanks swap
B) One tank tanks Dûrchest for the entire fight.



Hello everyone, I am from a small Kinship on Estel and I would like to discuss tactics if you don't mind. Since the very beginning we decided to stick to method B as we cannot reliably have two tanks in our raid setup. When the debuff builds up properly on the captains and champs we proceed with hard mode, but it still happens from time to time that the debuff won't stick to some of them, and the guard ends up swapping with a captain or a champ. Did you find an efficient way of ensuring that only captains or champs will get cleaved throughout the fight ?

On a side note, we usually have three or four heavies plus the guard, so whoever isn't cleaved will go and taunt the adds. Add tanking is then mostly done by range tanking, since the adds can be slowed the hunters are spread around the room, the champ slows the mob and everyone pew pew the mob from a distance, running if he gets too close until aggro switches to someone else. We already did HM several times, but our ability to complete HM since to be only based on sheer luck, and it is really frustrating. Do you have any advice on how to manage the threat debuff ? Or do you feel that method A is the only sure way to proceed with HM ?

[Grimbos]

A) Two tanks swap when the threat debuff becomes too big (at 40-50%?). The tank not currently tanking stays far back to avoid the odd turn and hit with debuff, waiting for his debuff to subside. Tanks coordinate swapping, with DPS holding back a few seconds to let the new tank settle in - helped by his Engage being followed up by Ire and Provoke from champion and burglars. Can place as many raid members in front of Dûrchest as we feel like (at a minimum 2 besides the tank);
B) One tank tanks Dûrchest for the entire fight. Cleave and the building debuffs are linked, the threat debuffs only building on a set number of people and not spreading to new people unless it is reset on those already having it building. This requires someone other than the main tank grabbing Dûrchest at the start of the fight, with the tank staying back, and that these never miss getting hit by the Cleave/debuff. We've seen this happen a few times, with one tank never getting a high threat debuff and being able to tank him the entire fight. This also requires, as we still had a minor threat debuff on the tank the times we've done this, that anyone doing DPS keeps in mind that the tank will be building threat slower than normal - pull Dûrchest off him once and this threat debuff management is bound to collapse.

Am I to assume, that under option B, it's preferred to get killed, rather than leaving Dirk's workspace when you're about to die when you have no debuff on you? Last night, I was at 400 morale, with all safety nets on cooldown, with no threat debuff on me at the time. I'm still struggling as to my role in that fight. Do I stay in Dirk's face at all times, do I bolt off to help the secondary tank on the add as an off-tank, do I DPS, do I just stand there and get pummeled, do I rise Ire or do I ebb it.

Below just a couple of notes to check if I got it right:

Under option A:
Ebb ire whenever the tank in my group needs to grab Dirk's attention
Since I don't have to take part in tanking him, I can go off and help the secondary tank when a black-mace comes along. Rotate between auto's, feral (anti-corruption) and wild (fervour building). Use either fervour or at later stages CB.

Under option B:
Stay in Dirk's face at all times. Go sloooooooowwwwwwww on the dps, just using feral's whenever the fervour is there. Rise Ire off the tank while going S&B in Glory.

If that sounds about right, I properly know what to do should I get picked again :).

Oh, and just a quick question concerning the Gauntlet: at the top with the two spectral guards, as a Raid Assist Target, do I stick to the one we're killing, or do I switch to the wargs should they reach the top? I think the latter, but I did the former last night.

[Hirion]

Two different strategies - and we didn't manage to execute either of them last night. The first because we had trouble changing Dûrchest targets (Enrage was resisted) and the second because one of the four asked to stay in front of Dûrchest moved away (resulting in the threat debuff hitting the main tank instead).



First of all two things goes for both strategies.

We always want minimum 3 people in front of Dûrchest as he does a frontal Distributed attack which can be distributed to a maximum of 3 people: less than three and Dûrchest can one-shot the tank.
We never DPS Dûrchest when there are adds - and it even makes sense to not DPS just after an add, but to heal up and have skill get off cool-down. This is because the first 5 Black-Armoured adds are linked to his morale. DPS Dûrchest too much and we can easily end up with having 1, 2, or 3 adds at the same time - resulting in our defeat.
Am I to assume, that under option B, it's preferred to get killed, rather than leaving Dirk's workspace when you're about to die when you have no debuff on you?
That's not a choice - in the sense that they are equally bad - if you leave your role as 'threat debuff tank' is forfeit; the same if you die. In other words we want to avoid that situation happening in the first place.

That it did happen last night isn't just a matter of your mitigations and the healers healing vs. Dûrchest's damage - it was caused by two other things in that fight specifically I) Someone was DPSing Dûrchest despite being told not to -> leading to two adds being spawned -> leading to more people needing healing -> less healing for you; and II) me being too slow in ordering in BSili (partly because I was suddenly needed to tank and add leaving me unable to follow the threat debuff development on the 4 in front of Dûrchest).

Last night, I was at 400 morale, with all safety nets on cooldown, with no threat debuff on me at the time.


Again, you went that low because people, despite plans, through their DPSing Dûrchest released two adds. That being said not having the threat debuff visible does not necessarily mean you are not a target for it... Confused? Yes it is a bit finicky, but I'll try to see if I can explain what we've learned about it so far.

Dûrchest uses a move that causes the 'threat debuff'. It is somewhat linked to his Cleave attack, in the sense that they're simultaneous, but it can be applied even if his Cleave misses and it might miss even if the Cleave did not.
He uses this skill with a somewhat constant interval throughout the fight.
A maximum of three people can be affected.
The maximum threat debuff on any single character is -100% threat.
The maximum total threat debuff of all affected is -210% distributed among the three targets.
Each time a person with the threat debuff is hit with the skill his debuff will increase another -10% to threat unless there is already a total of -210% threat across all three targets.
Each time the skill misses on a person with the threat debuff his threat debuff will loose 10% toward zero.
Dûrchest will seemingly only apply the threat debuff to a new person if someone who've had the threat debuff have been missed twice in a row (that means even if you don't have a visible threat debuff he will have to have used it a second time since you lost yours, missing you again, before you are no longer counted among the three targets of the debuff).
Keeping the above in mind that leaves two main options for tanking, the strategies described earlier, either by swapping tanks often trying to balance the threat debuff or by putting other people in front of Dûrchest, so that the main tank either gets no threat debuff at all or -10% at most.

You can accomplish the second option in two ways. Sending in only two non-tanks at first and wait untill they're both at a maximum -100% threat and then sending in the main tank, leaving him to get -10% threat at most. This takes longer time as both have to be maxed out at -100% before the tank steps in and there is a greater risk of his debuff to increase should either of the other two be missed by the skill several times as he's already a target with his -10% debuff. Alternatively, and what I was aiming at in the last attempt last night, we can send in more and wait untill three of them have the debuff at a total of 210% before sending in the main tank. This is a little faster and also means the main tank will get no debuff at all. Having more people in there only reduces the risk that the debuff will ever hit the tank.

I personally prefer the second option, but I know Raedwulf and I disagree on that. I dislike the first option because it is very vulnerable to either DPSers or Healers pulling Dûrchest off the tank (as he'll have high threat debuffs) or simply failing if Enrage is resisted making it impossible for the incoming tank to get hold of Dûrchest before the current tank has such a high threat debuff that Dûrchest is lost to whoever is second in threat.

I'm still struggling as to my role in that fight. Do I stay in Dirk's face at all times, do I bolt off to help the secondary tank on the add as an off-tank, do I DPS, do I just stand there and get pummeled, do I rise Ire or do I ebb it.
There's no simple answer to those question as they all depend on both what strategy we are using and on where we are in the fight.

Under option A:
Ebb ire whenever the tank in my group needs to grab Dirk's attention
Since I don't have to take part in tanking him, I can go off and help the secondary tank when a black-mace comes along. Rotate between auto's, feral (anti-corruption) and wild (fervour building). Use either fervour or at later stages CB.
I'm not overly adept in this strategy and I think Raedwulf could answer you better. However, as mentioned at the start of this post, there are still reasons to lock a few people in front of Dûrchest, purely for the distributed Cleave damage and if you're on of them you should only move out if there someone else to take the load in your place.

Also, Black-Maces are not that hard to survive. Yes they reset all threat forward now and then, hence wanting one on each side, but they don't do more damage than a medium armour can outlast with good healing. The problem is that they do frontal AoE and frontal kicks (destroying inductions), so we don't want someone in the middle of the squishy group of minstrels/lore-masters/rune-keepers being second in threat as it will cause a lot of problems. This happened several times last night - the add being pulled off to do havoc on the healing/support.

A single heavy or medium armour going to greet it is fine - and with a burglar, hunter, or even rune-keeper being second in threat, as long as that person moves to the add, opposite the other tank, and away from the others.

Under option B:
Stay in Dirk's face at all times. Go sloooooooowwwwwwww on the dps, just using feral's whenever the fervour is there. Rise Ire off the tank while going S&B in Glory.
To be honest, depending on group setup, I'm not sure I'll place a champion in there the next time I'm attempting this. Those that are in there, however, need to A) do no significant DPS on him before the main tank is in and B) do no significant DPS during or just after an add. Use of either Ire is very dependent on whether you have the threat debuff or not and at what tier. I'd suggest stealing threat from the healer as healers are bound to generate the most, next to the tank, and better to have threat in front of him than amongst the vulnerable core of the raid; that and with a minus ~-100% threat you effectively negate the threat alltogether.

Oh, and just a quick question concerning the Gauntlet: at the top with the two spectral guards, as a Raid Assist Target, do I stick to the one we're killing, or do I switch to the wargs should they reach the top? I think the latter, but I did the former last night.
I'd suggest in most circumstances to focus on the Black-Guards, but then again, getting through the gauntlet is what I'm most worried about should we get enough signups for tomorrow. I've led on Dûrchest and the second gauntlet, but I've yet to attempt at getting a raid through the first.

[Grimbos]

Can I then advocate in favour of a champion tanking the adds while another real tank takes his place under Dirk's armpits? We want the adds dead asap, which is proper championing work, while if I need to hold back and just take hits you might as well bring another guard along.

[Hirion]

Main issue is that we want someone with a Forced Taunt grabbing Dûrchest as we run in. Anything less and the risk is he will use his first Cleave/Threat debuff on other people in the raid, which in short makes a mess of things.

[Hirion]

And it's not that we're not intending to do damage on Dûrchest at all - it's just the timing that's crucial of knowing when to and not to.

[Hirion]

Hmmm.... since I've mostly been either discussing this in theory here or when leading the fight it's been standing in with a moments notice a few time, I'll now but my mind at work as to a few small tweaks on this for tomorrow, so make sure to sign up to see what we can make of it! :D

Rereading parts of this long looong thread there's a few things springing to mind. I will reconsider how many we'll place in front of Dûrchest, what classes, and the timing of sending in the main tank. More about this tomorrow!

[BSili IronMight]

Thought I'd post this here as probably not best placed in signup thread :P

-------------------------------------------------------------------

I was extremely frustrated last night.. running in and running out to not get the debuff constantly just didn't work.. and just got more and more annoying as the tanking Champions just didn't get the debuff..

Either first and prolonged aggro doesn't get the debuff (never loses them as the most threatening) or theres something with the debuff that makes it deliberatly target Guardians (and maybe Wardens) maybe forcing us to have to swap aggro from time to time like the earlier tactics.

Things arn't usually as complex as they first appear.

Also believe it was said that a possible reason there was more damage was because the -threat debuff was only on 2 and that is some how linked to the cleave.. so having another person with the debuff in there should make it easier? So in total that would be 4 people as someone doesn't get the debuff...

Also maybe its not 210% now across whoever is in front.. maybe thats the reason me and skels were on 100% each and the one with aggro didn't have anything.. so you'd have to have all 4 in from start to make sure the damage and debuff is spread..

One variation then would be 4 in from start.. making sure main tank gets initial aggro and noone else hits him for a little.. they are just there to be hit.. it'll become clear in a matter of mins if initial aggro avoids the threat debuff or not. If it does great if it doesn't go to backup plan or even reform quickly..

Also wouldn't the random insignificant hit that makes you fly, silences and presumably cause more loss of threat for so long cause Durch to run to 2nd aggro (if main aggro was hit with it)? In the case of only a main tank and 2 with - threat at 100% that would be a healer. Another reason to have 3 in front as more likely that there would be a 2nd aggro among the cleave group as not all would be -100% threat.. or in case of the earlier tactics having 2nd tank behind building up threat with hits till they lose the debuff and swapping would more likely make him stay still as 2 tanks would never be much higher in - threat as -50%.

So 2nd variation (based on the older tactics) would be 5 in from start.. 4 in front and 2nd tank behind Durch building up slow aggro (has to be slow cause you don't want to make him turn but at same time you can't be totally reliant on engage working) ready for the swap when first tank reaches an agreed set -threat % (or until aggro is lost to someone else as too dangerous while still having threat to make Durch turn).

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't mind me I like rambling about tactics :P

[Grimbos]

Here's my simplified take on a strategy for Durch:

Send in 2 heavies (3 if you can spare 'm) from the start. After the initial cleaves to get people debuffed send in your secondary tank until you've got the first 5 adds down. After the DPS phase to get rid of the soulreaps, let the maintank take over, and depending on the debuff levels, have one of the heavies step out and deal with the other 5 adds, while the Main Tank gets on top of the thread list. The main tank should be a proper tank, where as the secondary tank could be a properly traited champ or captain. The main tank should have upwards of 125 radiance, to ensure that even if DP hope runs out he will not cower. Kill the 5 HM adds, and ey presto: HM done. :D

I'm sure someone's bound to shoot some holes in this, but I thought I'd put it out there nonetheless.

[Hirion]

I'll follow your example BSili and move my post from the individual raid thread to the discussion thread here:


Thank you all for the effort! I commend you all for both focused play and a dedication not being swayed by being killed off neither by testing things or by the repeated lag spikes nor by having to run the Gauntlet twice.

It was good for me to finally get to lead the charge up the stairs - and though I had dreaded it in advance, it seemed nearly relaxed with you lot - and I was also very pleased with our attempts on Dûrchest. I felt we were quite set to do HM on the last two attempts - the first one failing as the server lagged us all out for near a minute (Dûrchie being a right bastard using that to kill five of us) and the second one failing upon dropping the tank on the 10th add with Dûrchie on a mere 15k; talk of sour endings!

By the by, there is not a lot officially to be founded from the Codemasters, *BIG SURPRISE*, on yesterday's lag issues, but it's clear from other posters that people lagged out all over Laurelin last night, had trouble reconnecting, and a all the other servers also crashed or near-crashed last night at the same time. I suspect that they're in the final phases of, finally, getting the patch ready for us, but they just don't dare do any announcement in case they'd fail again.

As impressed as I am with how people coped with a lot of incombat changing main tank as puzzled I am by the fight. I am absolutely certain that his Insignificant threat debuff worked different from it has in all our previous runs (as of a month ago and before). It behave in ways I've never seen before, and having had an eye on a lot before I suspect a tweak of some sort. I also know that we've used the tactics I imployed last night before, which was then very very smoth. But with one or two basic assumptions having to be changed so must the strategy.

I was so perplexed by this that I for once took a trip to the American forums - and lo': it seems the recent patch seriously malested several raid bosses, some of them doing as much as five times as much damage as intended! A few bosses are being fixed already, but Dûrchie is not mentioned yet, but that's not certain to mean he is not bugged also. At least several players are reporting that their kin/alliances suddenly have trouble managing Dûrchie after having had him on HM farm for many months. They report of seeing multiple, at times on a string, 8.000 criticals of damage from him. Some also report having problems with the threat debuff.

Now, I don't know if these changes have been applied to European servers yet. Officially not; but I've heard people talk about the part of the F2P patch that affect current content to have been implemented - if it has, it would explain why we've gone from rarely wiping on Dûrchie to having failed him on 3 raid-nights in a week. It doesn't mean he can't be killed, and I'm sure several of our attempts last night could have if we would have been less ardent about killing him HM only.

That's my two-pence for now. Again thank you for the effort - and hope to see you all back there again soon enough!

[Hirion]

BSili and Grimbos, you both raise a lot of good points - for now, however, I think what's needed is some further observation.

I'm rather bothered by the threat debuff being all bonkers. I see no reason why they needed to change the mechanics of the fight, even less so that it's seemingly been done in stealth. The same goes for his seemingly increased damage.

Originally I wasn't too bothered by the gauntlet reset, thought it an interesting twist, and mostly smiled at all the rage on the Codemaster Forum about how annoyed people were with it. But that they sneak-change the fight at the end of a long resetting fight, having many groups who had him on steady farm having to do it all over from scratch purely from not knowing the fight was changed, get's me less than pleased...

[calabam]

we do Durchest wiv a warden and tank every week so i can assure you this is fine i know how you guys fell i about spoilers so i wont post anything about fight its more than likely yous are just a bit rusty and he will fall so enough :)

[Raedwulf]

Well, I intend on having him killed tonight, is that quick enough? And yes, we are rusty - we haven't hit this place regularly since May! ;)

[BSili IronMight]

I just like to point out if people are rusty or not 1 month ago same 1 tank on Durch tactic killed Durch easily (of course with others in front for debuff).. and if I was rusty at all since coming back it would have been then my first time in the place for months :P

Tonight presumably we'll be doing 2 tank method.. its interesting to have two tactics on the go :D

[Hirion]

I've tossed the question at the Codemaster Forum if anyone have noticed Dûrchie being different and whether anyone had heard of parts of the patch on existing content had been applied (with all its bugs).

It's a no to both questions so far.

However, and interestingly enough, others have had Dûrchie bug before and the Insignificant debuff working totally out of the normal bounds. I think it is what we had Tuesday - and I suspect any increased damage may simply have been from the Cleave hitting few (= more damage) because of the bugged Insignificant.

[skelsamu]

oke durch we know on hm but the twins still not.
we still need that those on hm also.
so begin the discussion?!;p

[BSili IronMight]

I take it Durch's Threat Debuff behaved some what last time then? :P

Twins I think is looking good just needs everyone to get used to the pool placements and perhaps trying to get them down a bit quicker to limit the amount of pools.

I don't have much knowledge on the Shadow one so far as i'm always on the Flame one :P I presume its ranged tanking because it sounds like she has a horrible melee move from what I picked up from the encounters so far.

[Daphne]

Also a huge factor on the twins HM is the increasing amount of dread ... decreasing of course morale totals and efficiency all round, and making it even harder to remove corruptions successfully due to misses.

One point that we should take note of is if the dread is linked to their health or is it timebased? Because if it is linked to their health we are not in such a great hurry to burn them down and can have a RK go healing without worrying about loss of dps ... whereas if it is timebased then we might have to try and burn them down fast at the end to minimize dread/number of pools.

Mostly everybody must be really on their toes with getting pools placed well out of the way (and unfortunately it is a bit hard to say exactly where a pool starts) and you also want people to have rather good radiance/morale on this one - I think we even had people on 105 starting to cower at the end. I suspect though that its gonna be like the twins in DN ... you try and you try and fail and fail ... until you finally get enough practise in and it just goes right. So to get twins HM might be a case of collecting all the best radianced alts who have all tried it before and forcing them to repeat it horribly often *makes a face*.


And to answer Bsili: you cannot get close to the Shadow one until Mr. Fire guy dies as she does this all round explosion effect whenever someone is close to her (when she calls 'get away from me') which deals huge amounts of damage - a tank can survive it if he isn't too low on health, but many/most of the others would be oneshot kills. I also seem to remember that this gives you a threat debuff or at least resets threat. Oh and she can spam that so it's unfortunately not a case of moving away ever so often until she's done it and then moving back in.

[Raedwulf]

I've not been troubling to keep up to date with the on-going discussion here, since I'm still not in a position to lead for a while. However, I suggest that the base tactics for Sylvester & The Bitch are much as the Troll Twins (Stone-biter / Shadow-eater) in The Rift. By which I mean, follow the regular tactic - range / Wdn tank Bitch, while reducing Sylvester; just leave the alternating tanks on him after a certain point (30K? 50K?) whilst everyone piles into The Bitch & kills her; kill Sylvester. If anything goes wrong, you can always kill him & finish her off later, if you're feeling you want to get it done to avoid a gauntlet reset.

The trick will be to find the right point to switch targets, and the RL will always be playing it by ear to get them both killed within 10s of each other (which I think is the time limit for HM).

[BSili IronMight]

Actually you know that sounds like a good idea.. time to think :P...

I think perhaps the pools start at around 250k ish don't they? (not sure on that just seem to remember someone saying get ready for pools etc at some where between 300 - 250k, could be totally wrong usually concentrating then :P with all the resists etc.)

Maybe a better tactic would be to (if this starts at 250k on both) get them both down to say 270k (might have to be more as whoever is still on them will need to hit them, 30 - 50k as already suggested). At this point theres no pools I presume.. what we do now is choose one to burn down to say 20k again (perhaps 30k - 50k). Presumably we will then only have pools from one boss for that duration.. instead of 2 lots of pools all at once. As already stated this then gives us a safety margin for if things are getting far too hairy we can always take that one out. Plus everyone is eased into the harder stage when we switch bosses.

Then we switch to the other one and get that one down to same level of morale as the first one and then we attempt the down within 10 secs of each other.

What this actually does is make the fight more managable. We bring them both down so far at begining so when we switch theres less morale to get the 2nd one down. We then have to cope with only 1 lot of eyes for getting one boss down to 20-50k morale, this among other things means we can focus totaly on getting it down as fast as possible as we don't have to keep making sure they around the same health all the time from when eyes start. So this means we can use Oathbreakers and all the other goodies to damage things faster until we reach our cut off point. We then enter the more intense stage of 2 lots of eyes while getting the other one down from 270kish to within range of the first one (again using all the tools at our disposal for fast dps, Oathbreakers etc). And finallly getting them both down within 10secs of each other.

I think before we have been concerned with keeping them close in morale level with each other all the time and probably missed using that burst killing quick stuff on one of them. As this way we are not split in our dps and can get each one down quicker as more dps from everyone.

Suggestion for order of bosses.. because of how we are doing the tanking on the Fire Boss.. I'd suggest burning down the Shadow one first.. some reasons for this would be those on the fire guy are swapping aggro.. and this boss can wipe aggro from them with the Green Eye. This could lead to all sorts of mess when dps'ing them straight off.. although this would be doable if we paced the dps and was careful if there was a Green Eye epidemic :P So i'd think it would be more managable to burn down the Shadow Boss after so long of letting the main threat on the Shadow Boss keep aggro..

Another reason for Shadow Boss first would be because as mentioned you can't get melee in on her as she'll whip your butt. So it would make more sense to get her down to 20-50k first during the stage where we only have to cope with one set of eyes as dps would be lower and during lower dps stage it'll be best to only have to cope with one set of eyes.. because when we change targets it means melee as well as ranged are free to bash on the fire guy during the hairy stage so we get more dps on the 2 lots of eyes stage by doing this I think, which in turn makes that stage faster while limiting the problems associated with the 2 eyes. I recall once getting Purple Eye, Blue Eye and Green Eye one after the other that was actually fun :)

When switching to the Fire Boss because of the possible aggro loss etc.. all ranged would need to stand at the same range as the Tank that is not currently in melee with the Fire Boss. We know how far to stand without getting the debuff and without moving the Fire Boss so that is a good base to work from :D This is because if you get aggro and your stood in the wrong place you'll drag the boss into the group. Also when switching to Fire Boss we just assign the melees different tanking groups.. so they either go in and out when Tank A does or when Tank B does.

I think this is workable.. What do you think? :)

[Daphne]

Its certainly worth trying ... and as I said we should really try and figure out how the dread works .... is it purely time-based, or does it depend on the morale of one or both dropping below a certain level - if it is based on both going below a point that would be another reason for bringing down one first as well.

[BSili IronMight]

As an extra on within the 10secs part. We could just make sure to have things like Oathbreakers ready for the one we kill 2nd, Hunters switch to Strength, Lore-master applies Ancient craft, Captain applies the Mark that does more incoming damage etc etc.... We can also spend a few secs getting them both down to say 10k before blitzin one (without the special abilities) followed by the other (with all the special abilities that damage quicker).

I think once the Fire Boss is down to same level as Shadow Boss and to say 10k each we should kill Shadow Boss first.. reason for this would be the Fire Boss will still be taking damage from alternating Melee groups.. So makes sense to finish Shadow one first with ranged by that time they'll only be a few K Morale left on Fire Boss and with all the added abilities to kill it fast it should go down well within the 10secs.

That would be a nice bonus if the dread is also linked in that way Daphne :) Only way to find out would be to try taking one down in morale first. Actually 'Easy' Mode would suggest taking one out completely first before the 2nd one and we have done that fine before.. So it would seem that it would be linked in that way but not totally sure.

[Hirion]

Thank you for the input Daphne and BSili - I hope we can make use of it tonight (if we get through Dûrchie + the gauntlets painlessly enough to make time for the Twins) aiming at killing the Twins HM - and a fair bit of it is in line with what I had in mind testing.


If getting to the Twins tonight I'll aim at us:
Bringing both bosses to ~260K (Eyes starting at 230K)
=> DPS Shadow down to 50K
=> DPS Fire + Shadow down to 10k (slow down from 20K)
=> Kill Shadow
=> Kill Fire
=> Do an obscene victory dance.
Shadow is first because we have less damage on her (with no melee) and because the tank is less able to build threat not being in melee so it has to be paced. Fire less so - though we do want to make sure we don't pull him across the room if/when the ranged join in.

I see both strenghts and drawbacks from doing this. A benefit being fewer eyes for a period, and the drawback being getting pools for a longer period, leaving more pools on the ground to work around, when placing new ones.

If this fails I'd try again but without #2., effectively DPSing them both at the same time.

I don't know whether the dread is tied to time, to their morale, or a combination of the two. It is alluring to have a third healer, but no matter when the dread increases there is a measure of DPS race to the fight - the longer the fight the more pools. Also, we are already using the two captains as healers alongside the two main healers, so if we stack more toward healing we've got less and less to work with.

More than anything what we need is full focus from all and not letting a single eye slip or missing standing on the edge of a pool, as defeats most certainly will lead to dominos from more people running into pools while feared. So we need a constant eye on both our character and our morale bar to look for Eyes and for DoTs from being in a pool.


A reminder on the eyes:

Purple (fear): Use a pot. Stay where you are. Call for a captain if on cooldown.
Blue (fire or shadow): Move and place the pool as far from the raid as possible - stacking the pools as compact as possible.
Green (AoE knock-back + threat loss): Move away from the raid and try to find a spot of clear wall and face away from nearby pools.*
* I think we've only seen this in some of the fights here and ever only seen it on people in the melee group (and the tanks only?), so I'm currently under the assumption that we can avoid this eye from happening altogether. The question is whether it's gotten from being in the fire pool, having agro for too long, or perhaps more likely, whether it's from letting the fire DoT grow too much?

[Thrungori]

I don't know whether the dread is tied to time, to their morale, or a combination of the two. It is alluring to have a third healer, but no matter when the dread increases there is a measure of DPS race to the fight - the longer the fight the more pools. Also, we are already using the two captains as healers alongside the two main healers, so if we stack more toward healing we've got less and less to work with.

I thought we noticed that the pools starts disappearing before fight is over. So from some point we will have a set number of pools around.
Would it be best to stack them 2 or 3 before starting going next spot close to wall again?
Then hopefully there will be no pools were we started to drop pools before there is no more room.

[Daphne]

Well ... that worked :)

And dread only started when we were halfway done taking down the fire guy so that's a huge plus to the 'you only get one set of pools to start with'. But maybe leave him even more of a starting margin and take the shadow down a bit further right away (if tanked by a warden as he doesn't do that much damage to her ... a hunter would be another matter of course)

oh and we totally forgot about 6:=> Do an obscene victory dance.
Probably because we were all to busy starting to breathe again. :P

[Hirion]

oh and we totally forgot about 6:=> Do an obscene victory dance.
Probably because we were all to busy starting to breathe again. :P
You didn't dance?! Damn I was so glad no one had a webcamera on me just then, 'cause I certainly did it!

[BSili IronMight]

Was nice to see them Tactics working.. Especially nice that the first try was so close regardless of the fact it was the first time trying the fight this way :D

[Hirion]

More to come - for now just a little JPEG.

[Notiane]

A few loremaster tips for the Twins., feel free to use in the DG guide.

As of yet I've mostly been in there traited Ancient Master, sticking every debuff I got on the Shadowy one (with a medium armour tank the reduction in damage seems a welcome thing) On occasion (when dps on the fire is called for) I run over to the other side, applying Ancient Craft (the armour debuff) and lay down a Circle of Warding (yes, the one influencing the dead also works on man, traited AM)

Having a hunter tank in strength means he'll be needing power, the healers obviously do, and, since my dps isn't all that much, even dps classes can use that blue on my bar better then I do. Do be carefull once the eyes and pools phase has started, rather draw power way before it's needed, then starting to draw and having to stop because of an eye.

[Raedwulf]

Not sure the spoiler was necessary, Noti, though thanks for being cautious & considerate. I shan't be - this is the BG discussion after all! If you wander in here, you should know what you'll be seeing... ;) From memory, it having been a long while since I've been in, I'd agree with most of what you say. I never run anything except my standard mixed set in raid (3B / 2R / 2Y), and that worked fine (with considerably less radiance than you guys have these days).

As far as I recall, I tended to reserve melee debuffs for Sylvester & ranged for The Bitch. Especially if you're doing HM, methinks you want to use your debuffs as efficiently as possible, since they will both be doing damage throughout the entire fight, but yes, you need to keep all debuffs up for maximum amount of time possible. Similarly, don't forget to spam your heal every time it's available - every little helps, as the slogan goes. Whilst direct dps is not your primary role, don't forget that some of your damaging skills, notably Gust of Wind, provide other important benefits, and make sure they're used to the maximum too.

Finally, the one place I'll diverge slightly from Noti, Share the Power - I never worried about pools or eyes. If you're solo LM, which is the normal BG set up (blame me - I never felt I needed another to cover me when I was leading! ;)), you'll need to take power when you need it. Unless you've learnt otherwise, I don't think there's any way of judging when an eye is going to arrive, so you're always taking a chance. My one rule with StP is to make sure I blow all my power before using Power of Knowledge to recharge. That means get it as close to 0 as possible, even if it means waiting a few seconds for iCPR to let me use StP once more. Because traited PoK will fill your bar again. And you have remembered to trait it, haven't you? You are in a raid, after all, and unless you were given permission to go red-line, you messed up before you walked in the door otherwise... ;)

[Notiane]

the spoiler was mainly because of the format Bsili used in the guide. And I completely agree AM isn't the one and only way to go. Last few trips to the twins I was blessed being one of two LM's, therefore the choice of debuffing Shadow, leaving the fire dude to the other LM. And yes, eventhough it does damage, I consider GoW to be a debuff, especially with traited Wind Lore (it adds miss chance to GoW). Debuff, debuff, debuff, look at PoK cooldown, share, share, share, draw power is a rather standerd cycle for me in this fight

[Tiermond]

If burglars use a legendary weapon with maxxed out increased trick range legacy they can debuff and remove corruptions from Cargaraf without triggering his Away with you attack.