Lance Berg
2007-07-30 11:03:39 UTC
Just tried this last night on Combine, in a guild thats in a mix of gear
ranging from NToV to DON Crystal. We're limited to a top level of 70 so
far, and haven't had the long periods of farming that previous servers
had that were at this point... tanks are lucky to push 10K hp and 2K AC.
Here's the drill: 12 mobs standing in the center of a large room. Half
can be mezzed, the other half cannot. In order to spawn the Avatar of
Earth, all must be killed with some incredible amount of time, 6 minutes
I think it is.
The strategy, as we understood it, is to first pull each of the mezzable
mobs, get it down to low HP without DoTs, then mez it and repeat till
all mezzables are locked down. Then go out and pull all the other mobs
and work them down to low HP more or less simultaneously with a group
for each. We didn't have enough shaman to slow 6 mobs, and the bards
and enchanters were all on mez duty, so we'd position the 3 shaman we
did have such that each could reach two mobs.
As you might expect, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
When we pulled the first of the mezzable mobs, we got a real wake up
call, he chewed thru several warriors before we got him locked down and
sufficient heal stream going on; finally a 70 Sk with his 1.5 epic got
aggro (easy enough once everyone with low HP aggro died) and held on for
dear life, running Soul Guard and getting down to 10% hp repeatedly.
Hitting for up to 2800, quadding, plus a 200 a tic AE DOT and 1000 AD
DD, these guys are mean mean mean. We took him down to around 20 % and
called off the DPS,which was a little sloppy, we didn't get it landed
till 18%. After some discussion and rezzing of the dead, we woke him up
and took him down to 8%, remezzed.
Pulling the rest of the mezzable 6 was rough, we lost pullers right and
left, because the mobs would mass AE the puller. Snared mobs would split
nicely once the puller was dead, though. Sacrificial Ranger plan.
Using warriors going defensive, we managed to get the mezables down to
under 10% much more easily now that we were prepared, this meant
switching MT back and forth so the disc had time to refresh. Reports
were that when low HP they didn't hit so hard. Some testing indicated
that "low HP" meant somewhere south of 5% HP.
Plan changed. Now we were going, as a raid force, to pull each of the
non mezzables one at a time, reduce it down to very very low HP (the
point where they stop hitting so hard, target of 3 or 4%) and then leave
a tank and cleric only (we'd planned to leave a full group) on each.
While we were rebuffing before heading out to get the unmezzables under
control, we got another surprise. Mez broke on one of the mobs, and it
banished the enchanter who was on it. Luckily, not far away, but this
meant getting the mob back under control was a scramble. This happened a
couple more times as we tried to get the rest of the job done; mez team
must remain very tight and ready to patch mez each other's targets.
We moved over to the island, and eventually pulled one of the non
mezzables. Got him down to under 5%, then set an SK on him, with a
cleric all his own, and a shaman he'd have to share to keep the mob
slowed. Rezzed up and rebuffed (yeah, I didn't mention it but we were
still taking losses getting pulls and getting the mob under control) we
got another pull inbound... when it pathed funny and ate the TM SK.
Facing two RC at once we had a very hard time, but managed to get them
split up and the nearly dead one dragged aside. We were working on the
second when we noticed the first was dying. TM had no weapons, took
gloves off, still mob dying. We think someone dotted it in the panic,
not sure. Nothing we could do but watch it die.
Event pretty much blown, we tried taking out the remaining mobs in the
short time available, but wiped on them... would have been better of
course to just TL out, but we aren't that kind of guild.
First try, next time we'll be armed with better info and ready for whats
coming up, I think we'll beat this segment of the fight with just a
little better plan for parking the TM'd mobs and pulling the next. This
encounter is our final barrier to the Plane of Time, so there's no doubt
we'll keep at it till its beaten, one way or another.
ranging from NToV to DON Crystal. We're limited to a top level of 70 so
far, and haven't had the long periods of farming that previous servers
had that were at this point... tanks are lucky to push 10K hp and 2K AC.
Here's the drill: 12 mobs standing in the center of a large room. Half
can be mezzed, the other half cannot. In order to spawn the Avatar of
Earth, all must be killed with some incredible amount of time, 6 minutes
I think it is.
The strategy, as we understood it, is to first pull each of the mezzable
mobs, get it down to low HP without DoTs, then mez it and repeat till
all mezzables are locked down. Then go out and pull all the other mobs
and work them down to low HP more or less simultaneously with a group
for each. We didn't have enough shaman to slow 6 mobs, and the bards
and enchanters were all on mez duty, so we'd position the 3 shaman we
did have such that each could reach two mobs.
As you might expect, no plan survives contact with the enemy.
When we pulled the first of the mezzable mobs, we got a real wake up
call, he chewed thru several warriors before we got him locked down and
sufficient heal stream going on; finally a 70 Sk with his 1.5 epic got
aggro (easy enough once everyone with low HP aggro died) and held on for
dear life, running Soul Guard and getting down to 10% hp repeatedly.
Hitting for up to 2800, quadding, plus a 200 a tic AE DOT and 1000 AD
DD, these guys are mean mean mean. We took him down to around 20 % and
called off the DPS,which was a little sloppy, we didn't get it landed
till 18%. After some discussion and rezzing of the dead, we woke him up
and took him down to 8%, remezzed.
Pulling the rest of the mezzable 6 was rough, we lost pullers right and
left, because the mobs would mass AE the puller. Snared mobs would split
nicely once the puller was dead, though. Sacrificial Ranger plan.
Using warriors going defensive, we managed to get the mezables down to
under 10% much more easily now that we were prepared, this meant
switching MT back and forth so the disc had time to refresh. Reports
were that when low HP they didn't hit so hard. Some testing indicated
that "low HP" meant somewhere south of 5% HP.
Plan changed. Now we were going, as a raid force, to pull each of the
non mezzables one at a time, reduce it down to very very low HP (the
point where they stop hitting so hard, target of 3 or 4%) and then leave
a tank and cleric only (we'd planned to leave a full group) on each.
While we were rebuffing before heading out to get the unmezzables under
control, we got another surprise. Mez broke on one of the mobs, and it
banished the enchanter who was on it. Luckily, not far away, but this
meant getting the mob back under control was a scramble. This happened a
couple more times as we tried to get the rest of the job done; mez team
must remain very tight and ready to patch mez each other's targets.
We moved over to the island, and eventually pulled one of the non
mezzables. Got him down to under 5%, then set an SK on him, with a
cleric all his own, and a shaman he'd have to share to keep the mob
slowed. Rezzed up and rebuffed (yeah, I didn't mention it but we were
still taking losses getting pulls and getting the mob under control) we
got another pull inbound... when it pathed funny and ate the TM SK.
Facing two RC at once we had a very hard time, but managed to get them
split up and the nearly dead one dragged aside. We were working on the
second when we noticed the first was dying. TM had no weapons, took
gloves off, still mob dying. We think someone dotted it in the panic,
not sure. Nothing we could do but watch it die.
Event pretty much blown, we tried taking out the remaining mobs in the
short time available, but wiped on them... would have been better of
course to just TL out, but we aren't that kind of guild.
First try, next time we'll be armed with better info and ready for whats
coming up, I think we'll beat this segment of the fight with just a
little better plan for parking the TM'd mobs and pulling the next. This
encounter is our final barrier to the Plane of Time, so there's no doubt
we'll keep at it till its beaten, one way or another.