elite hound

[Demonfire]

I tried to run my first elite HoX yesterday night but it turned out to be a nice and clean fail!

I choosed to use the 2 dog method in order to have 2 stones ready for recharming.
Had a bard casting haste and bard songs. Cleric casting mass bull/bear.
Had a few peoples staying at eastern corridor while 1-2 were running around the portals to drag back trash to east.
Everything seems to worked well untill soon after second charming BH started to come in the middle. From there it was a fast slide to failure!

The only difference i've seen compare to normal/hard is that it took too much time for the dogs to get Xzyzy down to where we can hit her.

Where is (are) the flaw in this approach for an elite run and what would be your (constructive) feedback?

[Aegnore]

I tried to run my first elite HoX yesterday night but it turned out to be a nice and clean fail!

I choosed to use the 2 dog method in order to have 2 stones ready for recharming.
Had a bard casting haste and bard songs. Cleric casting mass bull/bear.
Had a few peoples staying at eastern corridor while 1-2 were running around the portals to drag back trash to east.
Everything seems to worked well untill soon after second charming BH started to come in the middle. From there it was a fast slide to failure!

The only difference i've seen compare to normal/hard is that it took too much time for the dogs to get Xzyzy down to where we can hit her.

Where is (are) the flaw in this approach for an elite run and what would be your (constructive) feedback?


Last time we finished HOX elite, we used 3 clerics...

2 of the clerics focused on healing and the other one was dedicated in dropping Extended BB at the portals then run around the outer area just to kite mobs...

Then at the middle one, an intimatank + 2 clerics + bard and arcane.

The rest of the group ran clockwise and the monk (runner) ran counterclockwise collecting the stones as they drop...

[Junts]

I tried to run my first elite HoX yesterday night but it turned out to be a nice and clean fail!

I choosed to use the 2 dog method in order to have 2 stones ready for recharming.
Had a bard casting haste and bard songs. Cleric casting mass bull/bear.
Had a few peoples staying at eastern corridor while 1-2 were running around the portals to drag back trash to east.
Everything seems to worked well untill soon after second charming BH started to come in the middle. From there it was a fast slide to failure!

The only difference i've seen compare to normal/hard is that it took too much time for the dogs to get Xzyzy down to where we can hit her.

Where is (are) the flaw in this approach for an elite run and what would be your (constructive) feedback?

On elite you have to be aware of where your 5th and 6th stones will drop from (whether you use 2 dogs or not) and where the mini-beholders spawn from. Its important to have people kill all 4 beholders immediately, and then they can wait at the 5th/6th stone locations. Unless your charming, singing, hasting is perfectly timed, you'll probably require a 5th charm to get her below the killable line.

The mini-beholders spawn in the 4 corner portals at about the 3.5m mark from when the quest begins. There will then be 2 more in the middle n and s portals about 60 seconds after that. The 5th-8th stones spawn in the same locations in the same order (eg the 5th stone is where the first is, the NW corner) starting at around the 5m mark from the beginning of the quest. They spawn 2, and then 2 more about 30 seconds after (the southern portals are slower).

To deal with the mini-beholders, have some people go to the w side portals right before those beholders spawn. On the east, have your caster put a cloudkill or something on the two east corner portals so that when teh beholders spawn, they aggro S and N immediately (eg go to the hallway). Your only real chance of failure outside bad play is a mini-beholder making it to the center.

There will continue to be stones every 4m or so, including after the big beholders spawn, so if you were somehow to kill them all you could still complete. You have 8 stones to work with before big beholder spawn time begins, and 1.5-2m to use those stones before the big ones come out. The little ones you should be ambushing as they spawn. Send out melee who can handle them and who are ok with killing the occaisional trash mob that they run into as well.

Unlike the renders, who do laps around the quest, the beholders by default go to the middle to check out what's going on ,so you have to intercept them or kill them or htey will inevitably wipe your charms and screw your clerics.

Xyzzy's damage output isn't really any higher and there shouldnt be a need for extra healers for the dogs, though you may need someone to actually heal the party unlike a n or h run depending on how self-sufficeint your melee are.