Dagada's Guide to Vanguard Raid Mobs

submitted by lifebane on Apr 18th, 2008

A loud and overly opinionated pushy necro friend of mien has decided to take the long walk out of Telon. He has however chosen to follow in the steps of the few and give something back to the community and in this case something which many will likely appreciate. Dagada of Seradon has submitted the following information to us for use as a guide for all the community. Ever wanted strat info on overland or APW raid mobs? look no further.. here are Dagada's "how to" notes on killing many of those very same Raid Mobs!  He compiled this list together with Eris and Lusain.  Thanks to all of you for sharing!

Disclaimer from the horses mouth (aka Dagada):   "Remember these guides were built around a guild who had 0 melee dps so for the most part.  The strats might seem weird or different. because we didn't have 5 rog+monks who could do 4-9k dps with bugged stacking issues and what not to every mob."

"well quite a few of us are leaving for various reason and we dont see much potential in this game for a while we may come back in 3-6months and see if anything has been improved or what not but thats the future and not the now.

so a few of us namely eris lusain and myself wanted to elave behind something that might be useful to people and amusing to other's it's not complete it's not 100% accurate some guilds will have to tackle things diffrently and other do. but for the msot part here is a general guideline for every raid mob we've killed to date have fun slacker and go kill some s#!t

OVERLAND

JAGUND-
-Have every raid member levitated to manage the knockback
-Jagund hits you with two seperate debuffs -- one cannot be cured (it appears in your buff bar) and the other one can be cured (its a curse). Don't waste too much time curing these curses...both debuffs increase your recast timers.
-If you die... release and run back! OMG
-Jagund is healed by Cold Damage.
-Jagund spawns lobster adds in pairs. They seem to be random -- and often don't spawn as often (if at all) on a second pull, should you accidentally wipe on the first attempt...somehow.
-Lobsters put up a curse which stuns you for 2 minutes. Can be curse-cured. This stun is a point-blank AE, so keep healers away from the lobster spawns.


PRIME WARDEN -
-To spawn the Prime Warden, slay all three Wardens above Nusibe within 2 minutes.
-Beat the third warden down to 10%, leave one tank and two healers and have a second tank engage the first warden. Make both die at the same time, and then pull the third and BURN. Use two tanks on the third so that if one gets stunned the other can hold aggro. This allows your raid to BURN.
-1st Warden has a nasty damage shield which goes up randomly -- all melee classes must stay on their toes to not die to this shield.
-Each of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd warden stun the tank for 10 seconds at a time quite frequently and early in fights, so tanks must work hard to build aggro and the rest of the raid must take it easy on DPS early.
-Cold damage heals wardens
-Each warden has a curse, 1 of which reduces mana pool by 2k and 1 which drains mana slowly.
Prime Warden himself -
-Pull within 1 minute of him spawning, or he'll depop. The add near him can be mezzed, kited or killed
- Prime Warden has a quick stun AE which frequently interrupts casting (AE) and breaks all crit chains
-PW hits with a random single target dot/mana drain called Enfeebling Barb
-Watch for Rending Claw - single target debuff that drops tank's mit by 20% for 20 seconds (similar to x99)
-Casters/Healers are recommended to stay at max distance
-Keep Prime Warden facing your raid, he has a nasty rear-arc AE

APW
General Vicus -
- Vicus mana drains,.... you MUST be at max distance IF YOU WISH TO KEEP MANA! Seperate DPS and Healers into two seperate places so that if a DPS does pull aggro, it doesn't mana drain your healer team.
- Adds spawn in pairs -- be ready with 4 mezzers. Assign each an add (first wave, left mob, first wave right mob, second wave left mob, second wave right mob).
-Vicus puts "Rallying Cry" on himself which increases incoming damage by 500%. Medium burn through the first Rallying Cry, and on the second have all raid members pop Quickening Jolt and BURN. Once you have enough DPS and understanding, this can be done in one Rallying Cry (but 2 is much safer, as the risk of having DPS pull aggro is much lower).
-Vicus puts up an enchantment which can be dispelled, which causes his damage to lifetap. Have dispellers dispel it.
-Watch out for Blade Barrier -- it sounds like a damage shield but it is, in fact, an AE.

Siliusaurus -
- His curse WILL hit you. its 25% energy and endurance costs, 25% cast times, and 25% to refresh timers. Use a bard with refresh-timer reduction and mana regen in your healer group to combat this
-He can insta-kill a tank (14k + hit) occasionally.
-Damage Shield at 40% and randomly thereafter. The shield can be pushed. Melee DPS must be careful to avoid the damage shield, especially when using melee-based AE attacks on adds (as it will cause the DS to hit you).
-Buffer healers between Sili with your DPS classes to minimize aggro from adds (as they can interrupt or slow your heals)
-Those with strong AEs use them to kill adds, the rest should continue DPSing Sili
- physical heals him, spiritual rapes him.
-Necro lifetaps are unusually effective vs Silisaurus

Athriss Essal -
-10min timer to kill her, or everyone goes boom!
-Athriss' target is misleading. The MT will continue to take hits even though his or her name isn't displayed. The name displayed is actually SECOND on the hate list, and that person will be randomly summoned.
-SILENCES !! (20m range), short duration. Casts often.
-Athriss summons adds. You'll see 1, 2, or 3 Energy Essence. Have offtanks pick them up and the raid shift focus (use a Main Assist) to burn them. When they die, they will become Nullifying Essences. Both types of adds use arcane damage that take energy and HP equally
- PSI's CHARM REQUIRED omg! NULLIFYING essences need to be charmed and used against Athriss to debuff her mitigation buff and damage shield. Psi will have to actively click their pet's abilities to debuff Athriss.
-When a Nullifying Essence spawns, and 1 is already PSI-charmed, have a bard target the nullifying and begin casting charm. This will despawn Nullifying Essences (I have no idea why, but it does).
-In between Energy Essences, we use Imperil, Hamstring, Blindside and instruct the raid to stay on Athriss until those forced crits fade before engaging the next wave of Energies. This helps keep Athriss dying at a steady clip, as it is a timed fight.

Vahsren the Librarian -
-Frontal AE mana drain -- keep mob turned away from the raid at all times.
-Every 20%, Vahsren puts up a big Damage Shield (2700 damage). He also spawns two books: Primer and Codex.
-Have a tank grab the codex and build aggro. Have another tank grab the Primer. Have the raid burn the primer down. Most of the time, killing the primer removes Vahsren's Damage Shield.
-Once the DS is down, re-engage and burn Vahsren another 20%. Rinse repeat. Don't kill Codex, just offtank it. Its a wuss.
-Special note:
If the DS doesn't go down after killing a primer, occasionally the primer will repop. Kill primer again. OR if primer doesn't repop, and the DS is still up, burn the Codex down. This will repop both books. Now kill the Primer again, and offtank the Codex again. You may repeat this process until the damage shield is down.
Alternatively, you can choose to very slowly burn through 20% of Vahsren with caster damage. If you do this, keep in mind that your tank can not generate much aggro while the DS is up, so have casters de-aggro heavily during this time.
-Arcane hits Vahsren VERY VERY hard. Since tanks can't build aggro while the DS is up, arcane casters must be very careful to manage aggro.


Shylosia -
-10 minutes after you pull her, you die. Kill her first.
- Location, location, location. Keep each member of your raid 3 meters from each other member of your raid. We position our raid force underneath the chain-link bridge in the adjacent room, with Shylo in the gap in the bridge.
- Hotkeys, hotkeys, hotkeys! Have every member add the line:
/cancelbuff "Burning Sycophants"
verbatim into every macro.
- When a SPAWN appears, have raid engage SPAWN and burn until it dies.
- When there are no spawns, have those with strong AEs use them to clean up Spawnlings.
-Spawnlings have a knockback+root, so don't get your tank and healers knocked out of range (find a way to stay "in place", such as under the bridge).
- Physical heals Shylosia.


Palpenipe -
- Mortewalon and Palpenipe have a frontal AE, so fight them such that each is aimed away from your raid.
- Tremeeli has a knockback, so that tank should fight in a corner to anchor himself
- Mortewalon has a frontal Flame AE, keep only the tank in front of him
- Have your MT on Palp slowly building aggro, but not doing too much damage. After a certain amount of damage has been dealt, you'll see Palp say something, which means within 1 minute he will begin his "thing"
-Palp's "thing" is to memwipe&stun his target. We use a three-tank cycle, with the help of monks&rogues and their +hate ability to begin building hate on the next tank in the cycle.

Zaraax -
-Location is relevant to this fight. From the Storehouse riftway, we move right and stay right. You will see a lone Repair Skeleton standing beside a Cartheon Destroyer ... fight those where they stand, and then fight Zaraax in that doorway there. Clear the 4 wandering mobs behind you, so you don't accidentally get them during the fight.
- Have 1-2 adds charmed (use bards, they are durable) and have the adds attack the other adds -- charmed skeles do great dps to other repair skeles
- Have a specific tank engage each Repair Skeleton one by one, so that he receives "initial aggro" -- nobody should be using AEs (or they'll get initial aggro on all 5 adds)
-Use a Main Assist and have the raid burn down the skeletons. All 5 must die within 60 seconds or they will turn into Angry Repair Skeletons and begin causing problems.
-Stay out from under fixtures/furniture as those areas mostly contain traps

Archon Travix -
- NEED TO CURE "THE" CURSE (necro is best suited for the job). Un-cured, the curse will slay you after 30 seconds.
-Bard poison cures are nice to prevent the AE damage
-If you die, you spawn an add. Don't die.
-Physical damage heals Travix.

Vercel -
- Vercel dispels levitate frequently. Bards re-casting Levi when it is dispelled is crucial.
-Vercel hits the raid with Gravity Flux every 20 or so seconds. He also hits the tank with a barrage of knockbacks every so often. Tank must anchor hismelf in the corner so to prevent Vercel from resetting or knocking the tank out of range.
-Debuff: 60% mana cost increase on all spells (bard song and high-elf racial ftw)
-At 50% and randomly thereafter, Vercel puts up a damage shield. It can be pushed. If you get hit by Vercel, and you aren't the MT, stop attacking! It's probably the damage shield (or you suck and pulled aggro. Either way, stop attacking).

Dread Lord -
-He dies in 6 minutes or your raid dies when he gets to DC5.
-Malazath puts up several different stances and enchantments. Have pushers and dispellers aware and alert to remove them.
-NO ATTACKS/SPELLS DURING HIS "FELL AURA" - you will get a warning that he is preparing it, and then more text when it happens. Hitting Malazath during Fell Aura will very quickly max his DC and your raid will die.
-MT must watch for when Malazath says something about "Wrack and Ruin" -- get a curse cure! You could get oneshotted by Wrack+Ruin if you don't have the curse cured quickly.

Senator Demetrius -
-Spiritual damage heals Demetrius
-Damage spells aren't very effective vs Senator (once Stolen Vitae I is up, which is early in the fight).
-When you strike an add with melee damage, you get cursed. The curse reduces incoming healing effectiveness to 10% of normal.
-Casters should kill adds while melee kill Demetrius. The fight is harder the longer it goes -- Vitae will increase as the fight goes on, causing Demetrius to deal more and more damage.
- Blood Rain is a frontal AE which goes off roughly every 15 seconds. You get an arm-waving, red-particle animation to warn you it's coming. This is the only significant source of damage the tank will take in this fight. When healers see the animation, they should spam heal for a few seconds. Otherwise a single healer can maintain healing on a tank until Vitae reaches 6-7 ... or higher depending on the tank.


Admiral Chicklets -
- RAIDWIDE MEZ similar to APW Key-Quest mob
-Chicklets hits your raid with a random single target 1min mez. We had our tanks make ROPE hotkeys, and if you got 1-minute mezzed we would rope you to the front, you'd get hit, and awaken.
-Chrykalis puts up a stance which gives him a 60% chance to RIPOSTE. Our understanding of RIPOSTE is as follows: When striking Chrykalis you have a 60% chance of becoming his "new best friend" (re: target) for several seconds. If you trigger Riposte while standing with the healers/casters/other melee, you will cause the mob to turn and DEMOLISH YOUR RAID. To combat this, we DPS'd as a raid for roughly 15 seconds, then stopped, waited for his RIPOSTE buff to come up, and then re-engaged once it was pushed off.
-Watch for his enchantment and have it dispelled ASAP.
- Chicklets casts a significant de-aggro on his target (the tanks, hopefully) during the fight, so we used two tanks. Healers are at risk of pulling aggro, so we set up healing as follows: Two healers per tank. When your tank isn't getting hit, stop healing. When your tank receives damage, hit Panacea immediately and begin healing. This really helps to mitigate aggro problems by giving healers a break for roughly half of each fight.


Shiver -
-Spread four mezzers around the outside of the room, each with an assigned mob to mez. We used a DK to mez one, and then had that DK function as our offtank (starting on his mob).
-Healers should position themselves such that they cannot cast spells on shiver (no line of sight) but can cast heals on the MT.
-At 83%, 63%, 43% and 23%, call ALL DPS off shiver (besides MT)
-Have your offtank engage an add. Shield the MT from the add's AE by using one of the pillars. Beat the add down to 40%. Stop DPS!
-Bring Shiver to 80 (or 60, 40, 20). Everybody hides behind pillars (Healers are already hiding).
-Shaman uses Panacea on MT as the freeze is casting. After the freeze lands, the damaged add is immediately brought to the MT and burned. At 30%, it will explode (melting the tank). At the same moment the mob is brought to the MT, have a paladin (or whoever) shield the MT with a group invuln.
-Ensure nobody but the MT gets hit by the freeze every 20% by hiding behind the pillars.
-First hit on main tank is a biggie! (11-13k ouchies).

X99 -
-8 minute timed fight
-Exalted x99 will AE every 2 minutes.
-Tank will be 20% mit debuffed every minute. DK has a 60sec 25% damage rune that lasts most of the 20second debuff. Use it! Also increase spam healing to compensate.
-X99 casts Reverse Polarity on tanks. Once its up, the MT no longer generates hate. From 80-50 you are at the largest risk of losing this fight due to your second tank pulling aggro early.
-Tank swap at 50% (exactly the same memwipe as X77). This tank swap is critical, as the second tank will not have been hit by Reverse Polarity (yet).
-BURN FIGHT! Use de-aggros heavily from 80 to 50 and then go crazy (as the second tank will have had the entire fight to build aggro).


Shortcuts:
Shortcut to X99/Core: Start in shiver room. Have one person who knows the way leave the raid. Everybody needs runspeed and HP buffs. Have a druid hit the lone person with tranquility. That person leads the way (watch the vents on the floor! They will kill everybody). Everyone runs through X99's door into the safe hall, leashing all the mobs. Done correctly, you will have very few, or no, casualities. The key is having the person OUTSIDE THE RAID.

Shortcut to Vercel: Use the sewers into marina wing, to the far end and run up the right tunnel. You will lead to a ledge, above aggro mobs, in marina wing. Similar to X99 run, have 1 person outside the raid. Be sure to aggro every mob in the way and have the raid follow. Run down, to the right, and then to the left is the elevator. Everyone go up the elevator, leashing the mobs (some people die if the elevator timing sucks, but it still saves an hour of clearing).

Shortcut to Palpenipe/Athriss/DLM/Chiclets/Senator:
There is a room between Palp and Athriss. That room is a "summon" area, you can call using regular (non-COTW) calls there. Around the room are light fixtures which you can stand on. We used Broomsticks (from the halloween event) to park a healer-alt on the light fixture. From here, an entire raid can be summoned in a matter of seconds...saving the 1-2 hour library clear. Alternatively, without broomsticks, I still believe you could have a person tossed over the wall in the above room by one of the two book-keeper mobs, a part of the librarian event, and then levitate down to a fixture (though I've never needed to try, as someone came up with the broomstick idea first).

***

DAGADA of SERADON"

-- This is a work in progress so if you have information on another mob or additional strat info you'd like to add please add your comments and we will update the guide accordingly. Thanks!

Lifebane

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