Dragon Flight Raid - Lets talk strategy

[RJC9000]

Did a Black Dragon today. Was not pleasant.

After we zerged the red one (16 players), we decided to bell and take on the Black one.

It went smoothly until the mini-reapers showed up. Once they showed up, it was chaos. Just like those of Valindra's Tower, the reapers chase you. Alot.

I did notice that they spawned whenever the Empowerers spawned as well. Perhaps we can just get them to the Empowerers, and then have the reapers chase the GWFs while the casters pelt them at range?

Either way, once we got over the reapers, it was standard fare zerg rush.

I know we aren't going to take on the Black one, but I might as well talk about the experience after we did it.

[Tundrra]

2 weeks of two dragon success!!

Great work!

Can I get a dragon expert to breakdown the red dragon group make up.

Now what is ideal make up for hitting 3 dragons?

Please and thank you!

[Phelaia]

Red Dragon Team consists of:

1 Tank (hopefully pretty beefy)
1 CW wearing High Vizier
1 DC wearing High Prophet (hopefully a Righteous DC)
2 GWF at 3.5k+ item level

Something curious happens when you combine High Vizier and High Prophet: the Dragon Empowerers are supposed to make the dragon super tough, but High Vizier and High Prophet basically ignore most of this buff.

As far as I know, there are 3 people who have High Viz, and 3 people with High Prophet. I have a CW with High Viz and a DC with High Prophet, but I can't be both at the same time. With our current gear level across the guild, I am not sure three dragons is possible until we slowly but surely power-creep our way closer to 3k.

[RJC9000]

Now what is ideal make up for hitting 3 dragons?

Please and thank you!

This is going to be next to impossible due to our current roster and class lineup.

Let me explain.

We generally have 15-18 people on.

For three dragons, you must have 2 groups of Phel's "Tank/HighProphet/HighVizier/2 High DPS" at Red and Black Dragons. Anybody else zergs green Dragon.

Who has a High Vizier set?
Phel/Thor/Myself/Tyr(?)

Who has a High Prophet Set?
Phel/Tyr/Nors(?)/Q
(Dammit Dad! If you didn't equip a spare High Prophet's Gauntlets + Helmet late at night, I could have one!)

So far, so good, you can get two of the High sets onto two dragons: Phel + Tyr, Thor + Nors, or Q and myself.
(Ideally, it would be Phel/Tyr and Thor/Nors due to Q and I having some of the highest geared GWFs in this guild).

Who has an active tank who can withstand the dragon's attacks?
Ziek, Tundrra, Blue, Tyr, Nors, myself, and Rain (not sure if Rain's tank is prepared for one of the dragons)

If you use the High sets, then Tyr and Nors are locked out, leaving Ziek/Tundrra/Blue/Rain/myself. If you can get some combo of Ziek/Tundrra/Blue or Rain in the tank section, then you're golden.

This leaves the biggest issue: DPS allotment.

After subtracting the High Sets and the Tanks, you are left with 11 players.
At least 4 DPSers must go to the High teams, leaving 7 players to take on Green Dragon.

Green team must have 1 tank and 1 healer to keep the DPS team topped off from that freaking Green fog, leaving even less DPS for the Green team.

Unless those 5 other DPSers are all bugged/Fabled set SWs or 3k+ Destroyer GWFs/Executioner TRs/Thaumaturge CWs, then you have a big DPS problem.

Don't think of using the High sets on the Green Dragon. The team lacks High sets overall, the possible set users would be busy on other dragons, and the High set users are going to die very quickly due to the fog (rendering the bonuses useless)

Overall, unless we can get a more diverse roster (specifically, some 3K+ DPSers and a permabubble Pally), some more High sets (enjoy paying over 3 million AD for either a Vizier or a Prophet set!), or some more teammates (#FreeHroth+Kriz+Oz+Kermit and #GetoverhereRoy), four dragons seems out of the question.

[Ziek88]

I want Hector to be wrong about 3 dragons but I agree we aren't there yet. I do believe we are getting there but oddly enough need a little more umph in the DPS department.

I do have some class observations that shine vs different dragons. As I am sure many have noted, green dragon is painful for control wizards and warlocks. The perma damage and no real way to mitigate it leaves them suffering throughout the whole fight. On the flip side, they seem to really shine at black dragon. During the tests due to their range they could rotate around the dragon avoiding the shades and hammering on the dragon. The melee classes actually had a harder time at black dragon because they shades dogpiled near dragon and there was no real way to hit the dragon AND avoid the shades.

I believe this may help maximize success and give people an idea of where they would fight and what position they would be building for.
-Red Dragon Core: High Prophet DC, High Vizer CW, GF, 2 extreme DPSers

-Green Dragon Core: Healdin or DC, GF or Bubble pally, 3 extreme DPS GWF or Rogues with strong self sustain.

-Black Dragon Core: High Proph DC, High Viz CW, GF, 2 Extreme DPS CW or SW

Stack extras at Green dragon and trickle a few to black if there are enough.

Benn's CW or Aratech's CW and Rabbit's SW come to mind for black dragon DPS. Sub one of the CWs to Red for a High Vizier wielding CW.

Blue's healadin and some of our powerhouse rogues and weapon fighters come to mind for green dragon.

Red dragon gets either Aratech or Benn and then another hard hitter of any class.

Tundrra and I going to Red and Black dragon with one of the high prophet DCs.

This could be a good starting core group to build upon. I am sorry if I missed some heavy hitters in the guild, these are just the ones I am most familiar with.

[Tyrandil]

I think we could potentially do three dragons if we follow this guide: http://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/never ... eed-dating

TL;DR is that a relatively small group of players can kill two dragons in one session by quickly beating one dragon almost to death and moving on to a second dragon while leaving a couple of people behind to finish off the first dragon when the time is right. So, for example: beat the black one down to about 5%, the entire group except for a couple of people moves on to green and beats it down. Meanwhile the two people left on black continue beating on it until it's at 1%; then they stop and wait until green is dead to finish black off.

[Ziek88]

Tyr, that strategy seems pretty solid. Maybe tonight we should practice the old double dip. I think a full triple will be tought but a challenge we could strive for and achieve as a guild. If 5 can kill red and everyone else double dips on black and green we may just pull it off.

I must admit I had to read the guide twice. The first time was a waste cause that was pretty hilarous.

I will be providing better tanking tonight. Going back to my tankier build after work in prep for mod9 dungeons. Meatshield mode activate.

[Tundrra]

My thoughts on the 3 dragon strategy, lets edit and tweak this plan.

RED:
Tundrra. Tank (hopefully pretty beefy)
Aratech 1 CW wearing High Vizier
Phelaia 1 DC wearing High Prophet (hopefully a Righteous DC)
Udo and Q. 2 GWF at 3.5k+ item level

@ 5 percent send everyone but the GWFs to GREEN

BLACK:
Ziek: Tank
Thor: CW
Tyrandil: DC
Hector and Destroyer: GWF

Remaining DPS groups: group Leader Rain and group Leader Bluebutton

@ 5% send everyone but the 2 GWFs from core group to GREEN

GREEN:

Since everyone is familiar with location and fight for green it will be the 3rd target for the guild.

[tornnomar]

This actually may be doable, my only concerns are being spread too thin. I would also advertise this attempt in a Guildwide email and in the MoTD to attract more members.

Seems as if the party make-up for Red and Black are coming together, Green is just Green, and quite frankly only seems difficult because of the Gas Cloud.
Blue is an entirely different matter and IS VERY SCARY! LOL:)

I prefer to run Tanith (DC) if assigned to Green simply because she is Virtuous (See my soon to be released write up on the Virt DC), and that fight needs a couple of DC's Buffing/Debuffing and Healing. Working in concert with Juez has worked very well at Green IMHO.

John is approaching the Magical 3K mark but can hit fairly hard and can be assigned as needed.

My Two Tanks: Sarasia and Ajax, GF and OP respectively could be used as a last resort as I really don't have much experience with Tanking.

I would so like to see this succeed!

[Tyrandil]

At the bottom of this post is a picture of the Stronghold with the four dragon fights drawn in with colored circles. Notice that the green and black dragons are relatively close to each other, and the red dragon is much further away from either of them - but especially green.

It takes about a minute to ride from the red fight to the green fight or vice versa. For a fight that lasts only ten minutes, that's a lot of fallow time where the player isn't contributing any damage.

For this reason, I think it would be better to have a plan where the red group stays put the entire time, and the only travel is between black and green.

Since the red group has the entire ten minutes to kill its dragon, and since it doesn't need to spend any of that time on the move, I think we should try to calibrate the red group's power level so that it just kills the red dragon at about the ten minute mark. Any DPS beyond that isn't necessary for the plan and would be needed in the green/black group.

I suggest that the other group - the green/black group - consist of everybody else. It starts on black, beats black down to about 3%, then departs en masse for green, leaving behind two DPS people. These two DPS people are key: they are the ones who control the timing of the ending of the fight, because they control when the black dragon goes down. Those two continue working on the black dragon until it's at 1%, then they stop and wait for the signal to kill it. Meanwhile, everybody else in the black/green group goes to green and works on killing it.

I suggest black first, then green, and not the other way around, because it would minimize the amount of time people have to spend waiting around in the green cloud of poison. That also means the two "executioner" players, if you will, don't have to wait around in the poison cloud.

One more point about this plan: since black will get whittled down to almost dead pretty early in the fight, and thereafter the two "executioner" players can kill it at any time, this gives us pretty good control over extending the duration of the fight to eleven minutes. If the red and/or green groups aren't quite finished and the timer is about to end, the two "executioners" on black can pull the trigger on black -- this will end the "regular" ten-minute timer and give the other groups one minute of "overtime" to finish the job. (The black "executioners" can move on to green to help out at that point, of course.)