Culler
08 Jul 2009, 22:02
Just completed the HoC in a PUG... Had the pleasure of Eveningstar healer for us initially but had to reform after a few failures on the final boss as people had to leave... Thanks for all the advice Eveningstar, such a shame a few didnt want to listen. The captain was not backup healing or the LM CCing :roll: (I was the tank btw)
Firstly this instance is a bit like 16th in that there are 3 bosses with a lot of trash mobs in between. Much like 16th the pulls are Very big (6-8 mobs)and if all the mobs are being tanked by a single character, their health will drop very fast. Even a well/equiped guardian and minstrel will strugle here however I suspect with the right traiting (- melee vuln for tank) and some good legacies a well equiped minstrel may be able spam bolster-courage just about fast enough. A captain providing back up healing would certainly be a big help however! With the minstrel having to heal so much aggro can be a problem too so minstrel should be using song of soothing, lute strings, and the anthem of compassion if they are able to get a break from healing (will probably struggle). Call to greatness on the tank is also a good idea to increase threat. Tanks obviously need a belt with +threat and be fully traited for tanking multiple mobs. Make sure the fellowship is following the FAT/RAT too as that can help a lot. I Would be interested to see how a warden deals with these pulls as having 8 HoTs would be awesome... Would also love to see how a RK manages the healing but that is by-the-by.... CC can make the pulls much easier especially a LMs traited root. Later on there are some ranged mobs so a burgs traited enrage could work well too.
The first boss is in a room which is roughly divided in to 4 quarters. Each quarter has a different colour (red, green, blue, yellow). Basically as the fight progresses the boss puts a number of buffs on himself which correspond to where he is stood. I think blue is a ranged buff, red is a melee buff, green is a tactical buff and yellow is a mitigation buff. These buffs stack with each other so when sufficient time has passed such that he has 6 red (for example) buffs he will start 1-shotting people. I guess the idea is to move him every so often so that the buffs do not become so large that he is too powerful. Only problem is that every time you move him a set of adds come which must be dealt with. This makes moving him a somewhat tricky strategy. It may seem logical to tank/dps him in the blue zone so his ranged buff stacks but have everyone within melee range. Unfortunately he will still use his ranged attack when in melee and can still 1-shot people if the buffs build up sufficiently. So the fight is basically a dps race to get him down asap. If you are in a dps heavy group this should be fairly easy if everyone is focused on the job. However if you have a LM the fight becomes very easy as the LM can debuff his range attacks such that even when fully buffed his attacks can be healed through... So my advice would be either tank him in the blue and everyone dps like crazy or just bring a LM :)
The second boss is easier and is a straight foward tank and spank... However the floor of the (small) room in which you fight him is divided in to squares. If you see flames start to appear on the square you are stood in the you need to move ASAP otherwise you will die very quickly... if inducting you need to break the induction and move to a safe square. Although he seems very succeptible to an all yellow FM this is risky as it means you neede to be stood still to perform it. Furthermore he will stun the tank meaning he can get caught in the flames. Once again LMs are nice for their stun-immunity. Other than that there is not much to the fight he will put wounds on people so either use potion or get LM to clear. I think RKs could have s skill which could be useful here'..... fall to the flames' or something like that.
Final Boss. A tough fight indeed. Once again will need a very good healer and prefereably a backup healer too. The fight happens in the middle of a fairly large room which has 4 doors in each corner and a forge/lava thing at the back. The boss is stood in the middle and is rooted so he will not move throughout the fight. There are 3 things to know about the boss. Firstly he performs inductions which put a healing corruption on himself (either remove the corruptions or better yet make sure boss is interupted). Secondly he does an aoe knockback of those in melee range... I think interupting him may trigger this and also briefly give aggro to the interupter. Thirdly, if the person with aggro is not within melee range he will let out an aoe scream that does big damage to all of the fellowship. Now if the person with aggro (normally the tank) is being punted that means they are leaving melee range and will thus trigger a scream. To negate this it necessary for the tank to position himself such that his back is facing the lava pool thing i.e. directly facing the door in which you enter the room. In doing this it will limit the the distance you get knocked back (preventing the boss switching targets) and allow you to run back in to melee range in time to prevent the scream (3 seconds or so). So, now the adds... adds will spawn from the doors from time to time. If any of the adds reach the boss HM is failed. They do have relatively low hit points and can be 1-shotted by decent hunters/RKs... ranged classes work well as they can attack the adds a soon as they come through the doors without having to move... they can then go back to DPSing the boss quickly. I think some doors spawn more adds than others but have not been able to check as I'm always tanking. Once again this fight is a dps race :( because as time goes on the waves of adds become greater and greater until the fellowship gets swamped. Other than that, ignore FMs if adds are around.. if not all yellow works well and hope you dont suffer a knockback. Minstrels should try to keep ballad of war up at all times and captains use oathbreakers when adds have gone... Burgs are very useful here to kick the fight off with a FM. One final thing. To start the fight have everyone move in to a poition by the lava pool such that LoS is broken on the boss. Then when the tank grabs aggro initially 5/6 of the fellowship will avoid his aoe scream thus helping out the healer.
Thats it, this information is far from 100% but may be of some use... If it sounds hard that is because it is :)
Firstly this instance is a bit like 16th in that there are 3 bosses with a lot of trash mobs in between. Much like 16th the pulls are Very big (6-8 mobs)and if all the mobs are being tanked by a single character, their health will drop very fast. Even a well/equiped guardian and minstrel will strugle here however I suspect with the right traiting (- melee vuln for tank) and some good legacies a well equiped minstrel may be able spam bolster-courage just about fast enough. A captain providing back up healing would certainly be a big help however! With the minstrel having to heal so much aggro can be a problem too so minstrel should be using song of soothing, lute strings, and the anthem of compassion if they are able to get a break from healing (will probably struggle). Call to greatness on the tank is also a good idea to increase threat. Tanks obviously need a belt with +threat and be fully traited for tanking multiple mobs. Make sure the fellowship is following the FAT/RAT too as that can help a lot. I Would be interested to see how a warden deals with these pulls as having 8 HoTs would be awesome... Would also love to see how a RK manages the healing but that is by-the-by.... CC can make the pulls much easier especially a LMs traited root. Later on there are some ranged mobs so a burgs traited enrage could work well too.
The first boss is in a room which is roughly divided in to 4 quarters. Each quarter has a different colour (red, green, blue, yellow). Basically as the fight progresses the boss puts a number of buffs on himself which correspond to where he is stood. I think blue is a ranged buff, red is a melee buff, green is a tactical buff and yellow is a mitigation buff. These buffs stack with each other so when sufficient time has passed such that he has 6 red (for example) buffs he will start 1-shotting people. I guess the idea is to move him every so often so that the buffs do not become so large that he is too powerful. Only problem is that every time you move him a set of adds come which must be dealt with. This makes moving him a somewhat tricky strategy. It may seem logical to tank/dps him in the blue zone so his ranged buff stacks but have everyone within melee range. Unfortunately he will still use his ranged attack when in melee and can still 1-shot people if the buffs build up sufficiently. So the fight is basically a dps race to get him down asap. If you are in a dps heavy group this should be fairly easy if everyone is focused on the job. However if you have a LM the fight becomes very easy as the LM can debuff his range attacks such that even when fully buffed his attacks can be healed through... So my advice would be either tank him in the blue and everyone dps like crazy or just bring a LM :)
The second boss is easier and is a straight foward tank and spank... However the floor of the (small) room in which you fight him is divided in to squares. If you see flames start to appear on the square you are stood in the you need to move ASAP otherwise you will die very quickly... if inducting you need to break the induction and move to a safe square. Although he seems very succeptible to an all yellow FM this is risky as it means you neede to be stood still to perform it. Furthermore he will stun the tank meaning he can get caught in the flames. Once again LMs are nice for their stun-immunity. Other than that there is not much to the fight he will put wounds on people so either use potion or get LM to clear. I think RKs could have s skill which could be useful here'..... fall to the flames' or something like that.
Final Boss. A tough fight indeed. Once again will need a very good healer and prefereably a backup healer too. The fight happens in the middle of a fairly large room which has 4 doors in each corner and a forge/lava thing at the back. The boss is stood in the middle and is rooted so he will not move throughout the fight. There are 3 things to know about the boss. Firstly he performs inductions which put a healing corruption on himself (either remove the corruptions or better yet make sure boss is interupted). Secondly he does an aoe knockback of those in melee range... I think interupting him may trigger this and also briefly give aggro to the interupter. Thirdly, if the person with aggro is not within melee range he will let out an aoe scream that does big damage to all of the fellowship. Now if the person with aggro (normally the tank) is being punted that means they are leaving melee range and will thus trigger a scream. To negate this it necessary for the tank to position himself such that his back is facing the lava pool thing i.e. directly facing the door in which you enter the room. In doing this it will limit the the distance you get knocked back (preventing the boss switching targets) and allow you to run back in to melee range in time to prevent the scream (3 seconds or so). So, now the adds... adds will spawn from the doors from time to time. If any of the adds reach the boss HM is failed. They do have relatively low hit points and can be 1-shotted by decent hunters/RKs... ranged classes work well as they can attack the adds a soon as they come through the doors without having to move... they can then go back to DPSing the boss quickly. I think some doors spawn more adds than others but have not been able to check as I'm always tanking. Once again this fight is a dps race :( because as time goes on the waves of adds become greater and greater until the fellowship gets swamped. Other than that, ignore FMs if adds are around.. if not all yellow works well and hope you dont suffer a knockback. Minstrels should try to keep ballad of war up at all times and captains use oathbreakers when adds have gone... Burgs are very useful here to kick the fight off with a FM. One final thing. To start the fight have everyone move in to a poition by the lava pool such that LoS is broken on the boss. Then when the tank grabs aggro initially 5/6 of the fellowship will avoid his aoe scream thus helping out the healer.
Thats it, this information is far from 100% but may be of some use... If it sounds hard that is because it is :)