Epic Dungeon Progression Aug 2013 - Dec 2013

[Tyrandil]

Congrats to Hrothnor (GWF), Aglavalyn (CW), Elissa Liora (DC), and Tiaruk (sp?) (TR, a PUG player from the Devil's Rejects guild) for successfully completing Cloak Tower and Cragmire Crypts tonight! (I was the fifth member with Talana, my GF.) We've completed those dungeons as a guild before, but this run was noteworthy - and profitable - because Elissa had just reached level 60 and Aglavalyn was using his new wizard alt. Everyone performed well and we cleared both dungeons - including the optional bosses - without wiping even once.

Special congratulations to Elissa -- these were her first epic dungeons, and she did great! Here's hoping to see her on more dungeon runs in the future.

[Phelaia]

Date: 9/30/2013
Dungeon: Epic Mad Dragon
Team: Kyler (Tank), Tundrra (Healer), Nimm (DPS), Tyrandil (DPS), Phelaia (CC)
Status: Success! After a lot of work...

Boss #1
First attempt was a fast party wipe. Second attempt was much easier. Kyler kited the boss to the hallway right before the boss room. Nimm and Tyrandil rushed the boss to the wall and kept interrupting her there, and fewer red circles appeared on the ground and fewer Imps were summoned. Boss went down fairly quickly.

Boss #2
First attempt, we got the boss down to ⅓ HP but did not survive the wave of adds. Second attempt, we got the boss down to ⅔ HP but did not survive the adds. The Erinyes were impossible to kill because they heal themselves and all nearby enemies from half to full in one go. Phelaia had some trouble knocking the Erinyes off the edge, and the boss was somehow chasing after her up the ramp without her aggroing him. Third attempt, it was a tough fight, but we got him: Phelaia and Tundrra controlled the small adds at the base of the ramp. Tyrandil defended the casters by killing the small adds with melee AOE. Kyler and Nimm tanked the boss. This took a while.

Boss #3
This one took 3 tries, and we were all going to give up after the third try. This is what finally worked: Tyrandil and Nimm tanked dragon. Kyler kited the Hellfire Magi well away from the dragon. Phelaia used Arcane Singularity to suck up all smaller adds, and used ice-based spells to kill the Magi one at a time. Tundrra kept us all healed. When the first wave of adds (four Legion Devils) spawned, Tyrandil and Nimm dropped the dragon and went after the Legion Devils until they were gone, then went back to the dragon. When the second wave of adds spawned, four Erinyes, three Devils, two Hellfire Magi, and a dozen Imps made life somewhat difficult for Phelaia, Tundrra, and Kyler. As the squishiest party member, Phelaia was taken down a couple of times, but we’re NOR, and we pick each other up! By a combination of persistence, skill, and a bit of luck, dragon went down after about half an hour of constant beating by Nimm and Tyrandil. After all that, there were still two Erinyes that kept healing themselves repeatedly from half to full. Phelaia finally got tired of them, and with no Imps biting her, switched in her DPS spells for 30k of one-shot crit with knock-prone. With a party of five on two Erinyes, these two went down fast.

Conclusion: The loot here is unsurprisingly craptastic, but the experience of finally beating the infamous Epic Mad Dragon with NOR was worth a hundred times more than crappy loot (it was a silly little BLUE sword after all that work!!!).

[Kyler]

I had hoped to never return to that place after doing it on normal. However it was most satisfying to do it on Epic most especially since it appeared to me that we all adapted to the fight fairly quickly just like with all of the other dungeons we've ran together!

I'm totally looking forward to the next run!

[Nimm]

It's been so great seeing the progression in our cohesiveness as unit. The communication is impeccable. Our Monday night crew is having a ball running these dungeons together. Epic dungeons are very difficult, I really encourage the other nights to sign up on the boards and get your unit in order as we have. Once you get a fairly consistent team it makes the game, the group, the guild, and our enjoyment that much better.

Three cheers for NOR

[Phelaia]

Mad Dragon was always a thorn in my side. It was difficult enough on normal when I was leveling an Executioner-style TR, because about the only truly efficient way to take down an Erinyes is critting her with 25k to 30k Lashing Blade. Therefore, Monday night was extremely satisfying because we did it legit WIHTOUT a TR! That's a chievo on its own. Now that I've done it, I don't want go back to that place again.

[Phelaia]

Date: 10/7/2013
Dungeon: Epic Idris
Team: Tyrandil (Tank), Nimm (DPS), Aglavalyn (DPS CW), Phelaia(DPS CC), Tundrra (Healer)

Phelaia took her TR on this run, and it was unusual. Since Aglavalyn is a DPS wizard, there was no wizard to spam Arcane Singularity, and some of the crowd control duty fell to the TR. Because most of us have run Idris before, we knew exactly how to pick a fight with Idris and deal with the Hulks. The only snag was when Tyrandil ran straight into a ball of 20+ skeletons and got collectively one-shotted from 28k HP. The group went /killme, but fortunately did not suffer from revival sickness. After regrouping, we got Idris fairly easily.

Good work, y'all!

[Phelaia]

Date: 10/7/2013
Dungeon: Epic Cragmire
Team: Hrothnor (DPS), Tyrandil (DPS-Tank), Aglavalyn (DPS CW), Phelaia (CC CW), Elissa (Healer)

That's right, we all walked into Cragmire without a bona fide tank. What were we thinking? Most of the dungeon was uneventful...that is, until someone opens a Mimic, and it nearly kills one of the casters! Blackdagger at the end was actually more difficult that it sounds: Hrothnor fell during the first wave of adds. Without our biggest DPS, we soldiered on, and Phelaia thought, ok, this will just take longer, right? Tyrandil single-handedly tanked Blackdagger at one end of the room. Phelaia spammed Arcane Singularity to clear the air around Tyrandil while killing the archers one at a time at the opposite end of the room. Aglavalyn kept shooting and Ice-Knifing the boss from the middle of the room. Half way through Blackdagger's HP, Elissa got charged by Blackdagger and got squished, and now it was down to two Wizards and a GWF. When the second wave of adds spawned, things actually got a little harried! Tyrandil fell once, and got picked up by Phelaia. Aglavalyn fell once, and got picked up by Tyrandil. The three of us finished off Blackdagger after some serious work. Aglavalyn got a nice pair of boots from the Fatebender set.

Phelaia's impression of the night: Just because you did Idris without breaking a sweat, it doesn't mean that Cragmire is a cakewalk.

[Tundrra]

Epic Spellplague Caverns
10-14-13
Team: Tyrandil (Tank), Nimm (GWF), Thorgrim (CW), Phelaia(TR), Tundrra (Healer)

We had a double successful night! We started the zone with 4 NOR and ended with 5. We zoned in with our normal Monday night group and PuG'd a Wizard through the group finder. The first boss "Plague Reaver" went down on our first attempt the mechanics were pretty straight forward, destroy the 3 spawning pits then focus on then boss.

The 2nd boss was completely new to us all, with the exception of our PuG Wizard Thorgrim. He gave us a easy strategy of going in slow, so we zoned in fast and pulled the whole zone:p. Attempt 2 we followed directions and downed the boss

The final boss had a pretty easy mechanic, but it was a looooooong fight and we got him down to 5% 3 times before winning the battle! To make the night even more successful Baroness Phelaia invited our new PuG Thorgrim to be a recruit in the guild!! We look forward to many more adventures with him:)

[Phelaia]

Re: Epic Spellplague - Final Boss

Tyrandil told me that this Aboleth thing was a psionic fish. I was the TR stabbing away at it, and it definitely did not look like a fish. In fact, it look an awful lot like a dungeon boss from the latest Zelda game on the Wii--I think I know what the devs have been playing themselves. With the shrinking arena and the surrounding pool of acid, I had to stay alive by jumping up and down and up and down like an annoying little desktop icon in OS X. During those massive waves of adds, I was wondering if I was actually platforming or RPG'ing.

In all seriousness, our newest recruit Thorgrim was invaluable in this run. When Nimm accidentally walked into the acid at 10%, it was Thorgrim who suggested that we all wipe and come back in AS A TEAM. He and Tyrandil kept all adds off the backs of the DPS, so they can really focus on the boss. My CW has a lot to learn from Thorgrim, and I am looking forward to more dungeons with him.



Phelaia

[Tundrra]

10.28.13
Spider Queen

Tank: Tyrandil, CC: Agla, DpS: Horthnor and NImm, heals tundrra

we made it through the zone quickly and easily and then we even took the side path area. but the final boss got the better of us in the end after about 6 attempts:(