The Vile Maw Guide

[bothorn]

What to bring:- Morale pots, Power pots, 30min Hope tokens, Combat/warding scrolls and light oil always helps for hunters


Step 1

1. Gather up on the right side of the room next to the shore.
2. Move left together across the room activating the watcher and stopping on the left side avoiding his initial wave attack.
3. Two tentacles spawn, we move back and begin dps on the left hand one keeping close to each other, tank aggros the right.
4. Watcher will Shake with anger, we move right together as one, then back in to the center continue dps.
5. Once left hand tentacle is dead begin dps on the right hand tentacle, lining up again close together.

Things to remember during this phase:-

Fellowship maneuvers can be dangerous unless it happens very soon after the watcher fires his wave attack it's best to ignore them.
Try to avoid attacks with long animations in the same way, i.e swiftbow, because you may be unable to move and therefore die.
When both tentacles are dead the watcher will reach up and pull the bridge over his head down hitting everyone for around 2k damage, so if your low drink a pot!

Step 2

1. Everyone Except the hunters should now gather close to the gate we come in from staying clear of the deep water pockets to the left and right side.
2. Two "Massive tentacles" spawn out in the deep water, immediately one hunter will take aggro of the left hand one the other hunter/s begin to dps the right.
3. Once the hunter on the left is happy he has aggro he can join the others in finishing off the rightside tentacle, soon as it's dead hunters dps on the left tentacle.
4. When the remaining left hand tentacle is down to around 4k morale, hunters stop and the group positions itself on the left of the room against the wall.
5. Hunters Move forward into range and as soon everyone is free and ready to move, hunters burn down the tentacle.
6. On death of the remaining tentacle 12 small tentacles spawn on top of the group everyone heads around the corner to the shore area (Cpt may use LS+IHW)
7. Melee kill all the small tentacle around the corner, if you get hurt badly come back around the corner for a heal then get back in there, the minstrel will never come to you.

Things to remember during this phase:-

Loremaster/s windlore on the left and right tentacles helps alot, if there are two of you co-ordinate whos gonna do it first so you dont waste it by overlapping.
From time to time members of the raid will be flicked into the air towards the watcher as soon as you land immidiatly run back to the group, if your close gate you should'nt land in the deep water and the only people in danger of that should be the hunter's, saying that if anyone ends up out there between the watcher and the raid it's the hunter's job only to free them, minstrels will have to move forward to heal but that is the only time they should.

Step 3

1. Hunters move into position just off the shore in the shallow water, the Hunter designated to tank the watcher picks up his aggro.
2. The other two hunters (yes this is based on having three) take aggro from one of the healing tentacles each.
3. The assigned melee team gathers and moves into the deep water together and make there way to the front of the watcher.
4. Once the melee team are in place we dps the right tentacle down to 5k morale, then we switch to the left tentacle and dps that down untill it's dead.
5. When the left tentacle dies we wait for the LEFT tentacle to respawn, (it's accompanied with a message on screen "More shaking tentacles emerge")
6. As soon as it respawn we kill the RIGHT tentacle that we left with 5k morale, then go back to dps'ing the LEFT to 5k then wait and repeat.
7. Once we get this going it's just a case of maintaining this rhythm;-

Kill right Tentacle, switch to left Tentacle and take it down to 5k
Break
Right Tentacle respawns, Kill left Tentacle, switch to right tentacle and take it down to 5k
Break
Left Tentacle respawns, Kill right Tentacle, switch to left Tentacle and take it down to 5k

Things to remember during this phase:-

Once again, windlore helps a lot, it's possible to hit the watcher with it and effect his two healing tentacles so focus it on his head.
When the melee team swims out to the watcher move together and only stop to free anyone that gets dangled on the way and taking care to avoid the patrolling tentacles as 99% of the time they cause instant death. Also when out infront of the watcher the melee team need to quickly respond to freeing any members out there that are dangled upside down, running close to them and pressing Backspace (to select nearest target) helps.
Champs, you have AoE tis a shame to waste it, so when your out there puttin dps on whichever tentacle we are on use these skill so you can dps that and the watcher at the same time, just take care not to steal aggro from the Hunter tanking him.
Debuff those tentacles, Improved rend, Telling mark, Reveal weakness, Oathbreaker, anything and everything to make the tentacle we are killing die faster is good.

Ok so hopefully this helps you to understand how it works and it certainly beats listening to me talk for 30mins, will probably only be 25mins next time.
Thanks for taking the time to have a read and if you just skimmed straight to the bottom then go back up and read ya bugger. :p

[Silirien]

Okay, questions:
-when exactly do we DPS Watcher than?
-when Watcher gets his massive heal?

[bothorn]

The thing is, killing the watcher himself is not the biggest priority of the fight, the healing tentacles are. No matter what happens the Hunter tanking the watcher will be hurting him all the time along with the champs AoE when there out in the water.

As for his healing that happens when both the the healing tentacles are up together for more than 1 minute which results in the 25k morale every few seconds heal that can wipe our progress, this is why killing the healing tentacles quickly is top priority.


I suppose also that during the time when we have taken a tentacle to 5k and we are waiting for the respawn we could get some extra hits on the watcher so long as we are ready to kill that 5k one as soon as we get a respawn as well.

[Bino]

Hey,

a mini question:
STEP 3, point 3: where does a minstrel position himself? Between the hunters and the watcher or behind the hunters?
Btw. I imagine that the tanking hunter could need a lot of attention from his healer...



and something i heard:
STEP 2, point 7: just someone somewhere said that if you do not kill all these little buggers they will buff up the watcher in the end of the fight.

[bothorn]

Hey,

a mini question:
STEP 3, point 3: where does a minstrel position himself? Between the hunters and the watcher or behind the hunters?
Btw. I imagine that the tanking hunter could need a lot of attention from his healer...



and something i heard:
STEP 2, point 7: just someone somewhere said that if you do not kill all these little buggers they will buff up the watcher in the end of the fight.




As for minstrels, 1 will be goin in with the melee group altho if everything goes well they should'nt have to heal much

The other mins will be staying with the hunter's and will be mainly focusing on the main hunter tank as a priority, there will be a captain there as well to help heal and buff hopefully giving that minstrel an easier job.


As for little tentacles, i have to be honest i've never heard that and thank for bringing my attention to it, i'd much rather be safe than sorry so at that point while the hunters are taking aggro from the watcher/healing tentacles i'll just have the melee go around the corner and kill them all. The main thing will be that the minstrel DONT go with them, if someone is getting low it will be up to them to come to you for a heal never the other way around.

[Milgarion]

From yesterday's run there just one detail you've omitted from phase 3:

One member of the melee team will be dangled at regular intervals by a Strangling. Rest of the team must switch and kill the Strangling asap. Remember to use 'Tab' to cycle targets as it's often difficullt to click on these wriggly buggers when close up.

[calabam]

From yesterday's run there just one detail you've omitted from phase 3:

One member of the melee team will be dangled at regular intervals by a Strangling. Rest of the team must switch and kill the Strangling asap. Remember to use 'Tab' to cycle targets as it's often difficullt to click on these wriggly buggers when close up.

yeah noticed some folk having problems (yep me aswell) targeting the strangling tenticals , just remember the part you target is further back from where the person is being held so u need to get in range of the 'hump' in the water .

[bothorn]

Ye I took the dangle thing as a given and is why I later added a melee to the RaT to help you out, the best thing tho I find and I know I forgot to mention this as you said you can tab threw targets but your backspace key targets the "nearest" enemy only so if you run up to your dangling comrade and press it you will most certainly target the tentacle you want.

I added that to the things to remember section of part3 for furture refrence.

[Derigar/Tarinas]

Point of note, unsure of its reliability but worth thinking about in light of melee pulling aggro, or the potential that we'll need to melee tank soon. The Watcher's third stage 'shaking with anger' effect that he gets when someone close to him has his aggro is supposedly a directional attack and not a true AoE, one that isn't too bad if he hasn't stacked about 20 +10% damage buffs. So basically if we need to melee tank him, just make sure the rest of the people are fighting at his back, or know they need to run through him at the earliest sign of that message (although given we seem to have issues with that during the first stage when we know the message is coming, its probably best to just be on the opposite side unless you're the tank.

[bothorn]

Hopefully standing to the far side will be enuff, cant afford to take long pauses from dps'ing the healing tentacles or it's definate fail. Saying that if the tank and melee group work together when the melee are killing the left the tank can move to the right and vice-versa if you catch my drift.

[Bino]

a wee suggestion... now we have a brg, which means a lot a lot a lot and maybe even
much more FMs ;), so would be good to have the melee group in one fellowship i think.

[bothorn]

I did! lol with the exception of the Lm's but I didnt really know where to put em and we had 2 which is really 1 to many as the fight works for now, some ppl say you dont need any Lm's but I like having one along for blowing wind-lore or in angrenels case hot air. :p

[Derigar/Tarinas]

Enrage the tentacles and slap on reveal weakness, +15% ranged damage (10 from melee) is a nice timesaver

[Raedwulf]

You'll also like it even more when I take the raven instead of the eagle tonight & sic him on Sid Squid - more ranged debuff, more fire damage. (And it's not my fault you keep allowing that camp follower Notiane to come along! :P)

[Notiane]

Only been roughing up the squid once, but it seems 2 LM's is a bit much. Some observations,
though: I don't think the raven will survive long near the squid, the Legendry trait from the
Ancient Master line (Force of Will) will diminish the watchers damage output a LOT(and make wind lore last 1 minute), less stress on healers, and, even though it will require the LM to get near the watcher, the warding circle helps a lot at Helcham, so if tyhe Watcher is anything similar a creature, it may well be worth the risk. Anyway, good luck to all those brave enough to trust Angrenel with all that :p

P.S., the "will become famous" at that reputation thingy(sorry for quoting Hal), should that not be
"will be notorious?

[Raedwulf]

You're just jealous! :P

In browsing the LOTRO forums I've inadvertantly picked up a couple of tips on LM tactics at the Watcher. The raven is said to be a must have for the debuffs. He can't do any worse than my bloody eagle who would just randomly shoot off into the distance & de-spawn! Apparently, the remove corruption is important too. Now, I have tried that in the past to see if it would get rid of some of those dmg buffs the Watcher builds up. Whilst it didn't seem to do anything, it may be that it was resisted without me noticing (another of those 30 foot tall mobs where you can't see your damage indicators... |:( ), or it may be that there's other stuff up that are corruptions & need removing. Plus I also think that standing out in the water is a better bet for the LM - brings you closer to the melee group for power-ups & emergency healing, takes you further away from the distracting tentacle spawns on the shore.

[bothorn]

Ye I was gonna put the Lm out in the water then I was a bit worried about how fast you die after a Tentacle picks you up, really tho thats the only danger for ppl out there so I reckon its worth the risk, oh and definetly get that raven distraction on as much as possible.

[Raedwulf]

Don't need to go out with the melee group, Both. I can hit the Watcher from the shore, so he's between 30-40m out. I need to be far enough out to be able to reach the melee group MNS - if he goes down (morale or power) they're stuffed; if he's up, they have a chance. I was able to reach Bino last time when still well short of the Circling Killer Tentacles, so I should be OK. The bonus is that it takes me out of the way of the annoying shore-spawns.

[Rhyaehar]

One thing we need to improve on is the aggro we keep on the Shaking Tentacles (the healing ones) We'll have to get one of the hunters (not the one tanking Watcher) assigned to one tentacle. As soon as that pops up, he/she will have to get aggro on it straight away, taking it down one or two thousand (swift bow + penetrating shot). That will stop them from hitting on the Minstrel.

Also, I think we would do well to stop at roughly 10k on those tentacles, as it will limit the chances of a few AoEing champs to accidentally kill it. Once the respawn appears, it will be down quick enough anyway.

A few other points that my friend Tommelhood (Grimdoin) pointed out that could be useful:
Pop hope outside. It will save on waiting for the dread to wear off.
More DPS on the first stage. We should be able to avoid a third shout, leaving us with less chances of people dying while running away.

In all, we have it nailed down now. Just it time for it to change :p

[Raedwulf]

And most of this thread ought to be hived off into a Vile Maw discussion thread in the chat forum to de-clutter the guide itself! FWIW, my version of the LM's job is this. Feel free to edit it into the guide however you please, Bothorn.

======

The LM & The Watcher
Only one LM is needed for The Watcher, but one is needed. You've little to do in Phase 1 - don't get killed is the most important thing. Add whatever dps & debuffs you feel like, and that's about it. Phase 2 will work you a little harder. When you're not doing anything against the distant tentacles, make sure you run back to everyone else at the gate - there's absolutely no point in risking being whipped out into the deep water for the sake of the dps you could do by standing close enough to use it. You have 2 jobs at this point - debuffs / Gust of Wind on the tentacles, power to the hunters (who do burn enough to want at least a couple of StPs between them). DON'T try using PoK at this stage - again, all it does is leave you at risk of being grabbed. If you're not doing anything else, you can help dps the little tentacles at the gate when they appear, but don't waste power (i.e. one Cracked Earth / GoW per batch is fine to add to the mix; more spells than that is heading toward wasteful).

Phase 3 is where you earn your corn. Advance out into the water once the Melee group are taking the fight to Sid the Squid. You want to be 25m away i.e. once Sticky Gourd / Dispel Corruption are in range, STOP! This will put most of your offence in range of Sid. Far more importantly, it leaves you nicely placed between the Hunter & Melee groups, and also mostly takes you away from the shore tentacles (you will still be subject to the occasional root from a Squeezer). Finally, if you stop at the 25m mark, you'll be well clear of the patrolling Killers.

From here you:
* debuff Sid. Wind-lore will hit both tentacles, as will GoW, making everyone's lives easier. Use SoP: Command as well. I always throw in Fire Lore as well, just in case it does any good!
* sic your Raven on Sid as well. Yes Raven. Not Eagle. Put Distraction on auto-fire so that Raven uses it whenever it's available & you don't have to remember it in the chaos. The only downside is you'll need to call him back occasionally to feed him power. Use Benediction whenever you get a chance to fire off a few attacks (& you might as well stick to Fire spells, because you won't be casting that many anyway). He should be fine apart from that - he seems to sit to the side of Squiddy, doesn't get hit by anything, & isn't bothered by the Killer Tentacles when going back & forth either.
* Share the goddamn Power! You will be doing this a lot! Everyone needs it, particularly MNSs & HNTs. CHM should be able to look after themselves, but everyone else benefits from an occasional zap. You can easily use PoK on Sid, and your positioning in the water means you're almost never under attack (a Squeezer doesn't seem to affect your draw time at all). Your position also means you should be able to reach the melee group MNS most of the time without moving (which is dangerous - I just wait for the MNS to come back into range, rather than risk walking into a Killer).
* Heal - As per usual you supply an important bonus to the available healing. In particular keep an eye on the MNS & the Main Tank Hunter.
* Allegedly, Dispel Corruption is also of considerable importance. I say allegedly cos I haven't noticed it do anything! Certainly it's not removing the +10% damage buffs (which are not labelled as corruptions anyway). Now whether that means it's failing a lot, or that there's nothing to dispel, I dunno. But I spam one off when I can find time.

And that's it really. It's quite intense & there's a lot to watch, but you don't need to budge an inch in Phase 3, if you've picked the right spot. As for Traits, I very much doubt there's a perfect set for this. This has been written post- our first kill (& pre-Bk7 so any of the foregoing may be subject to change!). For that I went in with only Healer from KoA (this is one time PAAI can be dispensed with - no wounds, no disease to contend with), & 3 each from the others. You will want PaW for the full benefit of PoK (plus it knocks 10s off the cd, I've just noticed!), & Study of Wind-lore for the extra debuff. CC is useless here, so you might just as well have 3 MoNF up (I had Flame of Anor for the bonus fire damage, in addition to the standard AoB & HwN; Master of the Staff is utterly pointless) which gives you a nice fire damage boost. For the 7th trait, it's really only a choice between ISoP: Command or Light of Hope. I went for the former on the basis that increasing Sid's vulnerability was more important (quicker kill = less +10% buffs & less time for a cock-up on the tentacles to happen!). Legendaries are, peculiarly, completely irrelevant - the only one that might make a difference is Noble Savage given that I did throw a couple of heals at Raven in phase 2 (I didn't have it slotted). You can't equip the 3 trait-set Legendaries (& only one would make even a small difference) & the rest will simply not affect the outcome in the slightest!

[Derigar/Tarinas]

While useful for certain parts, all this is going to change come book 7 as ranged tanking will no longer be possible, so we'll need to rethink the strategy soon anyway.

[bothorn]

I'll get around to it, the thing with this thread is it was never meant to be comprehensive as I knew the fight was gonna change within a few weeks and it was mainly for the purpose of laying it down simply and letting ppl ask about stuff they didnt fully understand, sometime soon tho I will do a more proper one and try to include individual roles ect much like what raed has written above altho im afraid it might turn into a novel lol.
Im not exactly a wordsmith tho so I'll need to see how that ends up after I sto typing and the dust settles.

[Raedwulf]

I'm happy to edit you, if you want...

[Haleabor]

As I'm now signed up for this weeks raid as a Minstrel...any suggestions other than, stand where I told and spam heal?

Eg...when is it most risky...when should I fire off my big group heals? etc

Any advice appreciated (apart from "don't turn up")

Hal

[Silirien]

Depends on the group you will be assigned to Berry.
If you stay with the Huntards on the shore, your main worry is to keep the Huntard (or maybe the Warden) tanking the Watcher well healed up, and the rest of the Huntards plus pest-cleaning Cpt alive.
Focus on Watcher tank is necessary because if he crits or devastates and tank is not at almost full health, he may go down which will probably mean a wipe as he will loose aggro and there's a high chance melee team will get it, thus wiping.
Also during the short period of time when Wind Lore might not be active on the Squid (ranged-dmg reduction buff from LM), tank will tend to get hit hard.

If you get assigned to the melee team, you will be standing next to the Watcher. If noone fks up (ie. noone in melee team steals aggro off the ranged tank on shore), you should not get any group-wide dmg, it's a rather straight keeping group alive in constant combat. Dangling people can put some strain on you occassionaly.

And if something goes wrong, it will probably go _all wrong_ anyway ;)

[bothorn]

Trait up as you would for a serious healing job i.e reduced power cost and the quicker inductions, improved rally is a must, also if you have enought rank in it slot compassion and charity for -% inc ranged dmg incase you take a hit which can happen for time to time.

If you can arrange that into 3 blue / 4 yellow traits then you'll have improved tale of warding as well which will help which ever team you end up in.

So maybe , Life-singer, Focused performance and Graceful Demeanor and then the rest Yellow line traits as you desire.