Epics - Anything but another House P or K run!

[stoolcannon]

House P and House K epics are great in that they are quick, some of the items are pretty awesome (especially house K) and you get some full tokens pretty easily but I've run them so many times now I'm ready for something new.

I've been running the Sentinals series a bit lately and it's not bad but I'm not overwhelmed with love for any of the items at the moment. Yes, some would be good for my toons but I'm mostly focused on my barb right now and not in love with anything out of there for him.

What are some other epics that people actually enjoy?

What I've run:
Offering of Blood - Fun, moderately challenging and not too long
Devil Assault - Fun, challenging but relatively long and potentially resource intensive (bonus for 2 tokens and good loot though)
Chronoscope - Very fun, challenging on the first couple of runs, only 45-50 minutes if done well (Im sure others run it faster) and not too resource intensive. Pretty good loot.
Into the Deep - fun but long
Last Stand - Short, easy button
Claw of Vulkoor - Haven't "run" it, just joined to loot after a toaster soloed
Fathom the Depths - Fun, not too difficult
House P chain: fun, pretty easy but oh man I've done these to death (Small Problem is quite fun on epic)
House K chain: fun but I've beat 1 and 2 to death, haven't done VoN3 or Von4 epic yet as I've yet to see a group posted for either and we haven't organized any guild runs
Sentinals: Not bad, pretty easy but not overwhelmed with the loot

What I've yet to complete:
Sands (Besides OOB)
Von3 and Von4

I almost never see any sands epics posted except the rare DQ, Red Fens is very rare and anything other than Von1,2 and 6 is pretty rare.

Are those quests generally disliked/too resource intensive/too long for people to want to bother with?

[Junts]

House P and House K epics are great in that they are quick, some of the items are pretty awesome (especially house K) and you get some full tokens pretty easily but I've run them so many times now I'm ready for something new.

I've been running the Sentinals series a bit lately and it's not bad but I'm not overwhelmed with love for any of the items at the moment. Yes, some would be good for my toons but I'm mostly focused on my barb right now and not in love with anything out of there for him.

What are some other epics that people actually enjoy?

What I've run:
Offering of Blood - Fun, moderately challenging and not too long
Devil Assault - Fun, challenging but relatively long and potentially resource intensive (bonus for 2 tokens and good loot though)
Chronoscope - Very fun, challenging on the first couple of runs, only 45-50 minutes if done well (Im sure others run it faster) and not too resource intensive. Pretty good loot.
Into the Deep - fun but long
Last Stand - Short, easy button
Claw of Vulkoor - Haven't "run" it, just joined to loot after a toaster soloed
Fathom the Depths - Fun, not too difficult
House P chain: fun, pretty easy but oh man I've done these to death (Small Problem is quite fun on epic)
House K chain: fun but I've beat 1 and 2 to death, haven't done VoN3 or Von4 epic yet as I've yet to see a group posted for either and we haven't organized any guild runs
Sentinals: Not bad, pretty easy but not overwhelmed with the loot

What I've yet to complete:
Sands (Besides OOB)
Von3 and Von4

I almost never see any sands epics posted except the rare DQ, Red Fens is very rare and anything other than Von1,2 and 6 is pretty rare.

Are those quests generally disliked/too resource intensive/too long for people to want to bother with?

Actually, in my experience I run next to nothing besides wizard king / epic red fens (occaisional evon2 for free loots) and the raids, but I think you'll find that for a wide vareity of reasons al ot of those things are primarily done in guilds and aren't widely pugged, most notably because they're either harder (epic chains/wizking/eadq) or to keep scrolls internal (red fens in particular on this one, IMO).

[stoolcannon]

Actually, in my experience I run next to nothing besides wizard king / epic red fens (occaisional evon2 for free loots) and the raids, but I think you'll find that for a wide vareity of reasons al ot of those things are primarily done in guilds and aren't widely pugged, most notably because they're either harder (epic chains/wizking/eadq) or to keep scrolls internal (red fens in particular on this one, IMO).

Yeah I've been trying to get my guild into organizing more of the desert epics lately. I've heard Wiz king can be a long one and I don't want to spend 2-3 hours on something and fail in a pug.

My first run at Chrono epic was in a pug since I saw one posted and thought what the hell. Ugly, ugly, ugly. It's not that pugs don't have good players, some of the best players I've run with have been in pugs, it's that the communication and coordination often is lacking.

[Quikster]

Yeah I've been trying to get my guild into organizing more of the desert epics lately. I've heard Wiz king can be a long one and I don't want to spend 2-3 hours on something and fail in a pug.

My first run at Chrono epic was in a pug since I saw one posted and thought what the hell. Ugly, ugly, ugly. It's not that pugs don't have good players, some of the best players I've run with have been in pugs, it's that the communication and coordination often is lacking.

Chrono is pretty new yet, give it some time and it will be fairly easy to pug.

I haven't been running epics for a while as I've been on a raid/tr kick, however, ev3 &4 are pretty easy if you have the right gear, and a breeze with the right party make up. Wiz king is also fairly easy and a good place to get seals/scrolls with all the mobs/potential chests.

Yet to bother with devils assault, and I hate chains on casual for some reason.

[voodoogroves]

I'd love to see some "generic" epic quests - that dropped epic stuff for "generic" named items.

That's the trick right? People run it for the challenge, but really they are running it for the epic tokens and a chance at specific scrolls/etc.?

[stoolcannon]

Chrono is pretty new yet, give it some time and it will be fairly easy to pug.

I haven't been running epics for a while as I've been on a raid/tr kick, however, ev3 &4 are pretty easy if you have the right gear, and a breeze with the right party make up. Wiz king is also fairly easy and a good place to get seals/scrolls with all the mobs/potential chests.

Yet to bother with devils assault, and I hate chains on casual for some reason.

DA is a blast imo. I've only done it 1.5 times with the .5 being in the same group that completed. It was all of our first times and we sort of winged it. It's not much different than most epics in that crowd control is absolutely essential but it can be a little tricky controlling all the mobs since the casters can stay pretty far across the room and you need to control them without getting too spread out and putting pressure on your healer.

Dancing the mobs you can't hit yet is probably the best bet and then stunning and beating them down together 1 at a time as quickly as possible.

Charming the big cats early is great too because they trip everything for the first 2 rounds and really help with CC.

The only real issue is the amount of time it takes and potential resource consumption. If you have a lot of melee that can stun quickly you'd probably be better off.

[stoolcannon]

I'd love to see some "generic" epic quests - that dropped epic stuff for "generic" named items.

That's the trick right? People run it for the challenge, but really they are running it for the epic tokens and a chance at specific scrolls/etc.?

I run them for the challenge as much as anything most of the time. I was running house P repeatedly to compete my Antique but I've been doing a lot of Sentinals lately and I don't really even care about any of the items.

[Quikster]

DA is a blast imo. I've only done it 1.5 times with the .5 being in the same group that completed. It was all of our first times and we sort of winged it. It's not much different than most epics in that crowd control is absolutely essential but it can be a little tricky controlling all the mobs since the casters can stay pretty far across the room and you need to control them without getting too spread out and putting pressure on your healer.

Dancing the mobs you can't hit yet is probably the best bet and then stunning and beating them down together 1 at a time as quickly as possible.

Charming the big cats early is great too because they trip everything for the first 2 rounds and really help with CC.

The only real issue is the amount of time it takes and potential resource consumption. If you have a lot of melee that can stun quickly you'd probably be better off.

I'll be getting around to running it soon, but even someone with a lot of play time has to prioritize :p

With trs at 4,4,9,14,14,16 as well as my capped trs trying to retool running most epics has been put on hold for now. Once my 16 is close to capped, I likely will start running a few more, but even then Ill prolly mostly be farming raids and leveling lower guys. Epic running will be limited to helping a guildie, or hunting for specific loot.

[stoolcannon]

I'll be getting around to running it soon, but even someone with a lot of play time has to prioritize :p

With trs at 4,4,9,14,14,16 as well as my capped trs trying to retool running most epics has been put on hold for now. Once my 16 is close to capped, I likely will start running a few more, but even then Ill prolly mostly be farming raids and leveling lower guys. Epic running will be limited to helping a guildie, or hunting for specific loot.

sheesh. I've got 3 toons total, all lvl 20. Haven't gotten the gumption to TR yet.

[sirgog]

Give the other Desert stuff a shot.

Wiz-King is easy if you know what you are doing, but quite difficult if you don't figure out the one spell that truly shines there. Raiyum is the only real challenge - he's easier than the Hezrou in Into the Deep but harder than nearly every other Epic quest boss. Be warned - this one is long, you need to kill all three bosses to get the epic chest.

Chains of Flame is brutal and long, and very tough on SP. A spellsinger and melees that stun are recommended (to make CC go further)

ADQ1 is very tough on SP but otherwise not too hard. Bring one of the Small Eberron D-shard Rest of the Eladrin statues and you will be fine.

The two main raids - ADQ2 and VON6 - are both worth running every time you are off lockout timer.

[Junts]

Give the other Desert stuff a shot.

Wiz-King is easy if you know what you are doing, but quite difficult if you don't figure out the one spell that truly shines there. Raiyum is the only real challenge - he's easier than the Hezrou in Into the Deep but harder than nearly every other Epic quest boss. Be warned - this one is long, you need to kill all three bosses to get the epic chest.

Chains of Flame is brutal and long, and very tough on SP. A spellsinger and melees that stun are recommended (to make CC go further)

ADQ1 is very tough on SP but otherwise not too hard. Bring one of the Small Eberron D-shard Rest of the Eladrin statues and you will be fine.

The two main raids - ADQ2 and VON6 - are both worth running every time you are off lockout timer.


Demon of the Frenzied Blood is painfully easy..

A knowledgable party can do Chamber of Raiyum in less than half an hour (I've done a 26m completion before).

A lto of the longer epics really punish people for not knowing where exactly everything is, which is what makes them long: if you know exactly where every arcane skeleton spawns in wizard king, for example, you can really zerg the quest because you don't have to stop for any other location (except to fw/gank the gatekeepers). Its the need to move slowly and stay as a party and kill things that makes wizking runs slow.

[UltraMonk2]

I do Epic Wiz King and Epic Chains of Flame with a regular group 1 to 2 times a week. It's very rare that we pug a spot outside of the guild. We know each others strength and weaknesses, so we keep the amount of resources we use down and also the time it takes to do them.

Adding just one person to the group who has never done them on epic before and who doesn't listen to instructions can use up more resources and take way more time.

[UltraMonk2]

A knowledgable party can do Chamber of Raiyum in less than half an hour (I've done a 26m completion before).

Epic Wiz King in 26 mins!??!!?

[sirgog]

Demon of the Frenzied Blood is painfully easy..

A knowledgable party can do Chamber of Raiyum in less than half an hour (I've done a 26m completion before).

A lto of the longer epics really punish people for not knowing where exactly everything is.

Oops, forgot they nerfed the epic Demon so much in Update 7. Trash no longer seems to spawn much and he does a lot less damage (~70 a hit now, down from ~150). He was never really tough, but pre-nerf you had to have a high HP melee in the group to tank him, as pure DPS rogues, monks and other builds with ~450 hp just couldn't be guaranteed to survive three attacks without a heal. In short, he was a lot harder than Raiyum or any other 6-person epic boss that comes to mind - he hit harder than the boss of Epic Devil Assault pre-nerf.

The Priestess and west ice statue are now the harder fights in there, post-nerf, and they are about the same difficulty as Raiyum - a half-decent group will beat it with no resource usage if they know what to expect, a decent group will thump it.

[Junts]

Oops, forgot they nerfed the epic Demon so much in Update 7. Trash no longer seems to spawn much and he does a lot less damage (~70 a hit now, down from ~150). He was never really tough, but pre-nerf you had to have a high HP melee in the group to tank him, as pure DPS rogues, monks and other builds with ~450 hp just couldn't be guaranteed to survive three attacks without a heal. In short, he was a lot harder than Raiyum or any other 6-person epic boss that comes to mind - he hit harder than the boss of Epic Devil Assault pre-nerf.

The Priestess and west ice statue are now the harder fights in there, post-nerf, and they are about the same difficulty as Raiyum - a half-decent group will beat it with no resource usage if they know what to expect, a decent group will thump it.

Demon just has a huge damage range; I've still seen him melee for 120-130, and I saw someone crit for 350 the other day.

There's no trash because people were soloing him by charming it, which made the fight really easy - and thats why it was easy before. I'm pretty sure its an intentional removal. It was a huge scroll farm.

And yes, I've done epic wizking in 26 minutes. I routinely (3-5 times a week) solo it in 60-70 and invite people in for the loot.

[sirgog]

Demon just has a huge damage range; I've still seen him melee for 120-130, and I saw someone crit for 350 the other day.

There's no trash because people were soloing him by charming it, which made the fight really easy - and thats why it was easy before. I'm pretty sure its an intentional removal. It was a huge scroll farm.

And yes, I've done epic wizking in 26 minutes. I routinely (3-5 times a week) solo it in 60-70 and invite people in for the loot.

350 on a crit - ouch. Still, he does not seem capable of 3-shotting a 450hp 100% fort melee now like he used to be.

We stopped charming in there once we realised how little damage the charmed minions did through his DR (generally Fascinated instead for the longer duration), and never really considered scroll farming - it takes a while to get to that fight, and you could just solo/duo/trio the first two or three waves of Last Stand instead.

26 minutes might be fast for epic Wiz-King, but it's still not a very profitable run for important shards or tokens. I only run it if a guildy wants the Bejewelled Letter Opener or Vambraces shards, OOB and Chains of Flame have much better loot and OOB is quicker (albeit harder)

[TheIvanovFamily]

Oops, forgot they nerfed the epic Demon so much in Update 7. Trash no longer seems to spawn much and he does a lot less damage (~70 a hit now, down from ~150). He was never really tough, but pre-nerf you had to have a high HP melee in the group to tank him, as pure DPS rogues, monks and other builds with ~450 hp just couldn't be guaranteed to survive three attacks without a heal. In short, he was a lot harder than Raiyum or any other 6-person epic boss that comes to mind - he hit harder than the boss of Epic Devil Assault pre-nerf.

The Priestess and west ice statue are now the harder fights in there, post-nerf, and they are about the same difficulty as Raiyum - a half-decent group will beat it with no resource usage if they know what to expect, a decent group will thump it.

I duo'd that encounter with my Wizard friend (i was tanking on my monk) with only a hireling for heals the day the Fens pack released. He was not that tough in his original version if you are prepared due to the fact that he lacks True Seeing.

[Ullysses]

Epic Wiz King in 26 mins!??!!?

Wow, would like to see a screen shot of that. I've ran epic wiz several times, usually takes longer than that to get to the first tower. And rarely is he in the first one! I've ran it in anywhere from 1-4 hours, depending on how the dice are rolling. And which tower the king is in...Of course, we also usually kill all mobs along the way for scrolls. Never tried doing just a speed run through.

[Aalric]

26 minutes for wiz king - wow - I am truly humbled. Takes me over 2 hours sometimes, which is why I rarely finish it.

OOB, on the otherhand, is fast and furious (relatively) & the whole thing can be done in about 1/2 hour or so (bit more, bit less) for some usually nice loot without a very difficult boss fight at the end. Then again, I often see more scrolls fall in wiz king then in oob...

If you're ever on Cannith, look me up - I'm always ready to "oob", ;)

[sirgog]

Wow, would like to see a screen shot of that. I've ran epic wiz several times, usually takes longer than that to get to the first tower. And rarely is he in the first one! I've ran it in anywhere from 1-4 hours, depending on how the dice are rolling. And which tower the king is in...Of course, we also usually kill all mobs along the way for scrolls. Never tried doing just a speed run through.

3 arcanes, 3 whatevers (probably best to have at least one cleric type for Raiyum, his spells hurt)
Enter as a group, clear the entry room, split up (one arcane climbs each tower, other three do whatever). Arcanes Halt Undead everything, then throw carefully placed Firewalls. Continue until you aggro the boss. If it's not Raiyum, solo them with Firewalls and other spells, then D-Door. If it's Raiyum, D-Door. Regroup at entry, shrine, whole group goes up Raiyum's tower, halting all the still alive undead on the way. Nuke Raiyum with Meteor Swarm and whatever else works best; melees get a chance to do something too. Collect Phylactery, D-Door, run to epic chest, loot. Some people make creative use of traps too to farm scrolls - this takes longer but has some extra rewards.

Almost exactly like an at-level XP run, but with less room for error and more incentive to go to the treasure room.

It still takes longer and drops worse shards and (in a speedrun with many mobs left alive) less scrolls than OOB, so OOB is still better.