Epic Dungeon Progression Aug 2013 - Dec 2013

[Phelaia]

Hroth, the only problem of Maelstrom of Chaos is that it takes one whole second to finish the casting animation, and Val has actually moved away during that one second. I could not reliably anticipate which way she moves during that stupidly long animation cycle. Also, I've gotten one-shotted by the dragon during that animation.

What I've seen that actually works is Icy Rays, because like a heat-seeking missile, Icy Rays marks the target so that the purple magic missiles homes then immobilizes and does a ton of damages (if it's feated). Then between a GWF's Slam and a TR's Lashing Blade (with no bleed stacks setup). This act of balletic precision relies partially on everyone having BiS gear, which most of us don't have. My CW also does not have a single point in Icy Rays because it used to be a pitifully useless spell until it was massively buffed when Mod 1 launched. Thorgrim has Icy Rays, but even though he doesn't have it feated, it's still a beastly spell when it's in the Spell Mastery slot, so maybe that's what he can do next time we go.

For a successful run by some people who average 14k GS, see this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4xBn6V1N_o

[Phelaia]

Dungeon: Epic Karrundax
Date: 11/24/2013
Team: Tundrra (Healer), Thorgrim (CC), Tyrandil (Tank), Phelaia (DPS TR), Eliza Uthardar (DPS GWF and new recruit)
Status: a messy success

On Friday 11/22 during the 9p PST Delve hour, Thorgrim, Tyrandil, Phelaia, Hrothnor, and Elissa attempted this dungeon for the first official guild run of Karundax. This team was 1 GF, 2 CW for crowd control, 1 GWF for DPS, and 1 Healer to heal them all. First boss involved Hrothnor tanking the boss, and the rest of the team on adds. Tyrandil's tank a this point has yet to figure out how to "kite," so the adds were all spread out and therefore a little bit of a pain for the CWs to fetch and push off edge. Second boss...3 out of 5 of us, including Tyrandil's tank and Hrothnor, were getting one-shotted while the room got ridiculously full of adds within 90 seconds. Alone the way, some of us also fell into holes in the floor! By 11p PST, four of us quit, because we simply didn't have any brain cells or reflexes left to keep trying. Thorgrim, however, stayed in there for who knows how long to figure it out.

Fast forward to Sunday 11/24. Tundrra was on, and with some encouragement from Thorgrim since he actually beat it earlier that day, we were going to try this again. This time, Hrothnor was not available, so Phelaia would have to take her TR for the DPS. Tyrandil tried to find another DPS on LFG, picked up a TR, and due to some system error, he never turned up. Then Tyrandil found a GWF named Eliza from the NW Legit Community. This Eliza sports a giant pink sword wearing a full suite of pink T2 armor. Phelaia inspected this Eliza when we all zoned in, and like the night NOR picked up Thorgrim to run Spellplague, she had a good feeling about this after seeing Eliza's stats. So off we go to slay the red dragon.

Boss #1 was a little messy than it could have been. The DPS had trouble keeping the boss in the center of the room. Instead, the Boss progressively moved to the edge where adds could be pushed off. The show must go on, so Thorgrim and Tyrandil must have quickly adapted to just burning the adds instead of just pushing them off. At 10%, Phelaia goofed and went after the Forgecaller instead of the Boss. Tyrandil said, "Phelaia, why are you going after the add?" Phelaia shouted back, "What add?!" Tyrandil said, "You're fighting the giant and not the boss!!" Phelaia looked up and said, "Sorry! I can't see that high. They looked the same below the waist!!" No wonder the boss's health wasn't going down as fast all of a sudden. Phelaia promptly went back to the boss--the one without the beard, and it didn't take very long to take her down.

Boss #2...the plan was the same as the first fight. The very first attempt went very well for the first 1 minute, because in 1 minute, we got the boss's health down to 50% before the DPS's got one-shotted. Second, third, fourth attempt was not as successful as the first. At the fifth attempt, Tyrandil was the only one left standing, and we all just went back one by one to help wear the boss down, but by now the aggro was all screwed up, and the room was literally full of adds and red on the floor. Eliza was chasing down the boss with her pink sword. Eliza was busy following and tanking the boss...somewhere. Phelaia avoided the red half the time by jumping, damaging the boss when she can, and dying...somewhere. Tundrra was healing and dying...somewhere. Thorgrim was somehow still alive and kiting adds...somewhere. At some point, the ball of adds finally became a train following Tyrandil, and the boss was at the end of the train. It just so happens that this was the 7th time Phelaia ran back to the entrance. The clouds opened, and there was one little tiny path from the entrance to the boss that was not covered with red. Phelaia stealthed, zipped in, and stuck a 15k Lashing Blade into the boss, and finished that last 1%. Then we wiped and let the adds reset before releasing and collecting the loot.

Boss #3...actually this was the easiest fight. Very straight forward kind of fight in a huge room, a predictable boss, and 2 waves of adds at set health percentages. Whoop-dee-doo. The dragon itself doesn't even hit as hard as Boss #2.

At the end of the run, some of us got great loot, while some of us got meh loot. Eliza became the newest recruit, and he even has Teamspeak already. This run reminds me of the very first time we beat Mad Dragon a few months ago. It was messy, but we did it, and it can only get better from here.



P.S. Who designed this dungeon?! That person should be thrown to into a pit with Boss #2, and therefore, fired.

[Phelaia]

@Hroth, we currently have ONE TR at 60, and you're looking at her. The problem is, this TR is also the CW who was helping Thorgrim with controlling the swarm of adds the other night. My TR isn't that great at burst, so I suggest the next time we head into Malabog, we go to NW Legit and find a TR with at least 2400 Armor Penn.

[Tyrandil]

I just went back and looked at our master progression list, and I was struck by all the boss names that are in green text. Our very first progression post is dated September 2, 2013. We've been at this for less than three months, and already as a guild we have conquered every epic dungeon except Temple of the Spider, Dread Vault, Castle Never, and Malabog's Castle. (And we've cleared everything in Temple of the Spider and Malabog's Castle except for the final boss.)

[Hrothnor]

Ok update....group make up was 2 CWs, TR,DC, an little o'me... after 3 hours/7 attempts, finished third boss. We had him down to 3 BARS once and I died trying to rez last team-mate. Here is the quick progression... I slammed her for EVERY Portal calling. it was the only reliable way to make sure. I pretty much have it down pat. I can recharge SLAM just right for each portal, but I cant use it for the choke out. That phase MUST be handled by all team-mates. Or TR was the ONLY one who could take her out without me. CWs just added DPS, didnt take her out alone. ITS crititcal that you DONT waste a death on the dragon red streak strafing! On a interesting note... we found a exploit or bug, that nobody had heard of... the first guy that died on one of our early trips ran around to watch the fight from the ledge overlooking the fight ( behind Val) and she AGGRO'd him in the death choke out cycle. We didnot exploit it and that attempt didnt even work. I asked that we have the gusta to do this the RIGHT way! When we did finally win, all of us still stood on the field of battle. I have plenty of SS's. So thats the plan, if we had multiple GWF's it can be done easily.. but cycling slam is crit! I can imagine 4 GWF and 1 DC .. 3GWF/2DC...lol! As for that "safe Spot" it doesnt exist anymore!!! Anyhow this is all about slow and steady... its NOT a DPS race as its thought. It about steady cycling and progression and everyone firing on all cylinders. DPS only counts when GWF was on "recharge" during "choke" mode and its a team efforst to drop her.
An the best part... what did drop, BLUE REDCAP BOOTS!!! Arrhghghghgh
P.S. I was honored by the group to the best semi-quasi-tankpug around.... what he just call me.. lol

[Tundrra]

I just went back and looked at our master progression list, and I was struck by all the boss names that are in green text. Our very first progression post is dated September 2, 2013. We've been at this for less than three months, and already as a guild we have conquered every epic dungeon except Temple of the Spider, Dread Vault, Castle Never, and Malabog's Castle. (And we've cleared everything in Temple of the Spider and Malabog's Castle except for the final boss.)

Very awesome! And we did it all before the module 2 Gear additions!! I'm very proud of our branch:)

[Phelaia]

Dungeon: Epic Spider Queen
Date: 11/29/2013
Team: Tyrandil (tank), Thorgrim (CC), Eliza Uthadar (DPS GWF), Phelaia (DPS TR), Kebin (DC from NW Legit)
Status: Success

The original plan for the night was a run to Malabog, but Hrothnor had plans with his family, so we changed gears at the last minute to Temple of the Spider. Since Hrothnor was not available, Phelaia took her TR against cautionary words from Thorgrim. In Thorgrim's experience, this dungeon needed 2 wizards, and the TRs he's run with before were not that useful in a fight. It turns out that as soon as we went in, Phelaia's newly-acquired pair of Ancient Castle Daggers showed their true colors, because Phelaia was doing 60k-100k of crit damage every rotation on the Driders. Thorgrim brought his damaged-oriented wizard and almost never missed with his artillery also known as Shard of Avalanche. Kebin kept Astral Shield up, and used Divine Glow to debuff AND heal at the same time (along with Sun Burst for extra group heal). Half way through, Thorgrim said he had a good feeling about this.

30 minutes later, we were already at the final boss Syndryth. The plan was for Phelaia to take boss down as fast as she possibly can, Eliza U and Tyrandil to hold the aggro of 90% of the adds, Thorgrim to dump adds on boss only when it gets overwhelming, and Kebin to debuff and heal. Everyone had to surround the boss to prevent her from teleporting. This way the boss was forced to eat the adds to keep her health up, and therefore getting her to thin the adds herself. Ready? Here we go: In we go to the final boss room, we went around the edge of the arena and took care of a handful of adds first then made straight for Syndryth. At first, we weren't that well coordinated, and Syndryth teleported a few times. After a few minutes, we got the hang of it and succeeded in preventing her from teleporting. Kebin was doing an amazing job, since no one's health bar ever went down to even half. Thorgrim was bunching up the adds, and Eliza U was cleaving through them. Tyrandil held the aggro of the boss and pointed her away from Phelaia, while Phelaia just kept her head down and focused on killing boss and not getting hit. 20 minutes later, Syndryth screamed something crazy and fell over, and the room did not have that many Blademasters left for clean up.

One note on loot: Out of the dungeon delve chest, Thorgrim got T2 armor, while Phelaia got T2 arms. Phelaia also got T2 arms out of Karrundax last week. The loot tables must have changed, since this is where you're supposed to get armor.

[Tundrra]

That's awesome! One more dungeon off the progression list before the module 2 release! We are going to have to look into knocking out the boring Dread Vault !

Edit: actually ToS was already off the list:). But it's great to see a good strategy being developed!

[Phelaia]

@tundrra, based on the post from 10.28.13 in this thread and what Tyrandil told me, the previous guild run to ToS ended with 6 wipes, and the team didn't get past 95% of the boss's health. Last night's run to ToS had no wipes at all, and the last fight only took 15-20 minutes. :-)