Demon Queen Logistics

[jortann]

I am getting prepared to run the Demon Queen Raid for the first time. I was hoping to finish up my last flagging quest tonight and tackle the Demon Queen raid on Friday morning. So I had a few questions...

The pre-raid (Against the Demon Queen) is only a 6 member party and the raid (Zawabi's Revenge) is a 12 person party, so do people usually set up two pre-raid groups and then combine to do the raid? I saw this being done the other day and I was just wondering if it was the norm. Or are there people who have the pre-raid done and are just waiting around to do the raid? (You do need to do the pre-raid each time you do the raid, correct?)

And about how long does doing both of these quests take? I am sure this can vary greatly depending on the quality of the group, but what should I expect?

And, being a wizard, what should my tactics be and what should I be prepared for?

Thanks for your help!

[Fomori]

The pre-raid (Against the Demon Queen) is only a 6 member party and the raid (Zawabi's Revenge) is a 12 person party, so do people usually set up two pre-raid groups and then combine to do the raid? I saw this being done the other day and I was just wondering if it was the norm. Or are there people who have the pre-raid done and are just waiting around to do the raid? (You do need to do the pre-raid each time you do the raid, correct?)
Usually what will happen is a group runs ADQ and then opens up a DQ LFM for others to join. If they get enough hits they run DQ. If they do not, then they just wait individually until someone else puts up a DQ LFM to join.

[Odium]

I am getting prepared to run the Demon Queen Raid for the first time. I was hoping to finish up my last flagging quest tonight and tackle the Demon Queen raid on Friday morning. So I had a few questions...

The pre-raid (Against the Demon Queen) is only a 6 member party and the raid (Zawabi's Revenge) is a 12 person party, so do people usually set up two pre-raid groups and then combine to do the raid? I saw this being done the other day and I was just wondering if it was the norm. Or are there people who have the pre-raid done and are just waiting around to do the raid? (You do need to do the pre-raid each time you do the raid, correct?)

And about how long does doing both of these quests take? I am sure this can vary greatly depending on the quality of the group, but what should I expect?

And, being a wizard, what should my tactics be and what should I be prepared for?

Thanks for your help!

Once you do the three flagging quests, you only have to do preraid each time you want to do the raid. Either way for doing the group is acceptable, but most people just get two groups together and going at the same time just to make filling the raid group easier.

Against the demon queen can take a while if you dont know what you are doing (15-up to 90 min [if your alone and its your first time in]). There is a tome at the beginning that you have to read and it tells you (cryptically) the order the wings must be done. I dont know the how to tell them apart as i usually run this with my guild and they know it very well or join a group flagging it (which there seems to be one up fairly frequently). The actual raid itself doesnt take much time at all. 15 min at the most with a decent group.
For the raid itself a weapon has good and metalline or good and cold iron to get through her DR. She is a nasty beast with knockdowns and her attacks dish out some heavy damage in a short period of time (he has 6 arms and uses them all at once it seems lol)

Hope this helps.

[tihocan]

On a Wizard, you want wall of fire, waves of exhaustion, and at least one of Cone of Cold / Delayed Blast Fireball / Polar Ray. Scorching Ray isn't bad either.
The key thing during the fights against the Queen (twice in pre-raid, once in raid) is to stay away from her, trying to keep her in your firewalls. Keep stoneskin on to avoid being killed too fast if she gets to you.
The CoC/DBF/Polar Ray spells are for the last 20-ish% of the raid fight, when she says "I am war... I am destruction (...)" and becomes immune to L4- spells.
Make sure you exhaust her once in each fight. Makes it much easier to stay away from her.
In the raid, as a wizard you should also:
- keep yourself alive by dodging blades
- if noone else claims the gnoll archers to regen SPs, one firewall on each gnoll (may need to do it again after they respawn)
- make sure you firewall the queen on her teleport destination after each teleport

[Zeruell]

Make sure you exhaust her once in each fight. Makes it much easier to stay away from her.

Of course, this will cease to be very meaningful outside of a temporary -3 malus to damage, come U7, unless the current plans to alter the spell change before it goes live.

[jortann]

Thanks for the help guys.

I'll plan to jump around like a maniac singing, "Can't catch me I'm the gingerbread man!" while yelling, "Burn baby burn!"

[LordMond63]

Made my first attempt at the pre-raid just the other night.

It didn't end well (I think I alone died enough times for her to make CR 25....) but it was apparent a couple of things would have helped:

1) KITE HER. At least as much as is possible. Yes, it's a fairly small room but it quickly became clear that she concentrates on one foe at a time (barring crits from others or the like) and, if that one person can remail away from her attacks, she will chase that one person around the room and ignore the rest of the group while they cast spells, shoot arrows or whatever. I was the healer and was able to cast all of my healing spells when needed without getting aggor UNTIL I got a crit on a Heal.

2) Don't be afraid to run the pre-raid on NORMAL even if you're high enough level that you'd tear thru it on Hard or even Elite. Remember: this is the appetizer, not the entree. Run the Raid itself on a harder difficulty if you'd like but you just want to get through the pre-raid as quickly and painlessly as possible.

I have to wonder why Turbine made the decision to force you to run this pre-raid everytime you want to run the Raid (is there another Raid in the game that requires this?) but you can make it as painless- or not- as you want it to be.

[TrinityTurtle]

Also, when you actually do run the raid, run it on normal. There seems to be something wrong with the hard and elite difficulties as far as raid loot actually dropping and we haven't seen ANYTHING named drop on hard/elite in ages. It would be especially said to have a dry run on ones first time, part of the fun is seeing the nifty things that can come out of the raids. :)

If this has been fixed since I last ran for favor vs. loot, take a minute to pm me and let me know, it's kinda aggravating. :)