Another few stupid Shroud questions

[Spoonwelder]

Hey,

Have over 40 Shrouds under my belt on my cleric, but I had never got close enough to Harry to sniff his toenails. Now I have a melee build that if finally Shroud flagged.

I got into a Shroud shortly after getting to L17 and crafting the stone. So I go in, know the portals, know the beatdown, two step puzzle and run 4 waters, step into 4 and now my palms are sweating. I have to get up close and personal on Harry.

Almost a 1 rounder - bare sliver left and we finish em off easy....well sorta - I got killed right as we take harry down - cleric claims lag - no problem. Someone hits altar but cleric is still running back to res me....learn something here -New Insight number 1..... it is not as instantaneous fail on raising the dead after part 4 as I thought. On my cleric I was always frantic to get the raise/rez off in a micro second. I am sure I had a full 5-10seconds from the altar hit to getting the raise button. So thats nice to know for my cleric.

Anyway back to round 5 - we go in on the deathbus and everything goes swimmingly - I get kasquiks agro at the end and like a good date guide him right into the circle of love to pin him down. No problems. Casters mana up - New Insight number 3 - that takes for-frickin-ever. I see the last cleric getting close so move back to kasquik to help on his beatdown.....on step up to him and bam dead....oops no deathblock on - dumba$$. Get raised - get re-FOMed (have poison/fire on items) ready to go and take down Harry again.

New Insight number 3 - Harry has huge ankles. Ohh and he kept nailing me with strength debuffs and disease. Never, ever knew that was happening from my wayback position on my cleric.

So.....to the questions - Is there anything I should worry about with Harry's strength and disease effects on my melee? A disease immunity item, I guess, but is that necessary? Would anything else reduce/eliminate the strength damage (it seemed to go away real fast anyway)? As for my cleric - should I be concerned at all about this - should I cast mass heals in the rotation once in a while just to remedy these diseases/strength damage? (usually just rotate mass cure's as primary healer - spot in with mass heals if I am the backup and can tell it's needed).

Oh and a thanks to those in the group (horrible with names so hopefully the above rings a bell if you read it and were in the run)- it was fun to relive the Shroud with a new perspective. Obviously the giddiness of it all got to me since I put up a +2Cha tome for roll.....but I got karma for that since I had a +2 Wis tome in the end rewards list! Not that I really needed either of them....but I can bank it for an alt.

[Alerax]

for melee a disease item is very handy. Most will hand out fire, fom and poison. but without that Disease something your goin to get the devil chills, and that just hurts. Con and Str damage are no good when your trying to beat on Harry on the front lines.

[fluffybunnywilson]

I have a Disease Immunity ring of Neutralize Poison. I wear that when I fight Harry or any other big devil lord that causes disease and tries to poison you.

It means that I miss out on a little DPS or on my striding by not wearing another ring, but I'm okay with that if it means I don't have to deal with disease.

The poison doesn't really matter most of the time since Mass Heal fixes poison and Mass Heal gets flung at you fairly often in the Shroud. Since a potion or clicky of Neutralize Poison lasts for 7 minutes, you can get rid of your Poison Immunity item in favor of the Disease Immunity item. I tend to throw quickened Mass Heals with occasional Mass Cure Moderate to top people off if they're taking more damage than they can deal with in the cooldown. I usually end up with at least 30% of my blue bar remaining.

[stoopid_cowboy]

Here's my advice (for what it's worth).
I have healed 100's of Shrouds. Had about 50 completions before I TR'd and didn't know the truth about d-dooring at the end (different subject). I also have many melee based characters (barbs and rogues) each with at least one cleansed item if not two.

Mass Heals are your friend: Yes, Mass Heals will keep the party alive nicely and also remove all those nasty effects that Harry puts on the melee. Poison resist is nearly useless as Heal will remove all poison effects. Disease immunity is also nearly useless as Heal removes all disease effects. Notice I used the term "nearly". I would still recommend that all melee charcters make a triple negative shroud item. They are well worth the larges. Yes, your cure moderate mass will crit enough to keep everyone alive, but it DOES NOT remove the nasty Harry effects.

Fire resist good: Nototally necesasary, but it will block 30 point of damage from the fireballs. An occaisional mass protection from elephants can help save the lower HP melee's life. Sometimes that extra 120hp's of fire protection can let Mr. Squishie live until the next Mass Heal. Remember, Harry's fire damage hits for about 250 per attack (give or take)

Cold shield awesome: Reduces incoming fire damage by 50%!!! You Rogue's with UMD and no HP's, buy a few scrolls.

Clerics CAN spell DPS: Just because you are a Cleric, doesn't mean you cant contribute. You have pleanty of spells that can aid the melees (I am excited about divine punishment):D

FOM: Very helpful to the fleshies (WF are immune to holds). Being held lowers group DPS and is just plain annoying.

Death Block: Yup, Kasquick has Vorpals. :D

Magic Circle Against Evil: The Gnoll commands you to lay down!

DR Breakers: Just get them. Orange numbers aare sooo much more awesome to see than yellow numbers.

To the OP, congrats on your Melee Harry smasher!!!! It's always a good feeling to pound on Harry from time to time.

yuda :D

p.s. farming is for people in Iowa

[Dwarfo]

p.s. farming is for people in Iowa


or kansas :P

[Spoonwelder]

To the OP, congrats on your Melee Harry smasher!!!! It's always a good feeling to pound on Harry from time to time.


Thanks man.....I noted your sig line....I have been a portal bashing on m cleric since the second or third shroud. But last night ....again - the cleric was standing there watching the portal beat down. I wasn't in an advice giving mood, but FFS hit the portals.

It feels great to complain as a melee.

Also thanks for the notes. As a healer I am fine, it was just some new stuff that no one ever mentioned or I had experienced before due to only doing it as a casting type cleric.

I agree with you that Mass Heals should be the bread and butter....BUT I get complaints. The masses want cure masses. I PUG it alot so that is probably the difference since there are more squishies that don't want to die in the 9 seconds or so it takes between casts.

[ceiswyn]

I agree with you that Mass Heals should be the bread and butter....BUT I get complaints. The masses want cure masses. I PUG it alot so that is probably the difference since there are more squishies that don't want to die in the 9 seconds or so it takes between casts.

When it's their mana, they can tell you how to use it. And if they can't be kept up by mass heals in a normal Shroud, they are, yes, squishies. Tell them so from me :)

What annoys me is when a FvS or bard in the group panics and casts a quickie mass cure a split second before my mass heal goes off. Way to waste both our mana, guys...

[Spoonwelder]

I am ok if the star sets it out the battle plan.....I want you and you rotating mass cures... you take out x blah blah blah. Otherwise I will work it out with the other cleric. Two clerics rotating mass heals every time you can should work perfectly....but....even some clerics prefer mass cures. So I don't fight it....I go with the flow...but I don't use pots unless I have somehow caused the problem (ie. lag spike caused a problem or something).

What was weird last night on part 5 was we had both clerics with full blue bars at the start and before we even hit 50%(say 1 to 1.5 min) on Harry they were nearly out, one guy drank 2 more pots. Thing is we were getting double healed for most of it. Lesson healers - watch the other healer as much as the red bars. If you see their animation start - wait a few seconds before you cast OR coordinate one guy to dump is SP first then have the second guy take over. Talk it out. It will save alot of SP. Most runs when I am healing I still have enough when Harry hits 20% to start dumping spell damage on him as well as heal and still end with SP left.

[ceiswyn]

OR coordinate one guy to dump is SP first then have the second guy take over.

...there are groups that don't do this??

[fluffybunnywilson]

...there are groups that don't do this??

I usually just pretend that I'm solo healing and assume that the other healer is incompetant. The other healer is usually just fine, but that attitude saves the raid in the few cases where the other healer actually is incompetant.

I do make sure that I'm out of phase with the other healer if they're casting Mass Heal, though.

[Spoonwelder]

In the raid I was in not one word was said to or by the clerics. That's why I commented on it. So yes it does happen - and then you get in trouble and have to start chugging pots.

[Cardtrick]

...there are groups that don't do this??

It's sad . . . but I can only think of one or two Shrouds I've been in where the healers do this. There's so much double healing going on that they may as well each be solo-healing.

To the OP: If you have any way to push your UMD high enough to scroll-cast Fire Shield: Blue, do it. It's glorious when meleeing Harry. I hardly ever see anyone else doing this, but as I run in to take on Harry my chain of events is:
1) click titan's glove clicky
2) cast fire shield blue
3) engage madstone boots clicky

It's just about enough time for him to spawn. You wouldn't believe how much damage you save yourself by cutting down fire damage by 50%. I don't think most people realize quite how much of Harry's damage comes from fire. (Cloak of Ice and/or Firestorm Greaves work too if you can't get your UMD up there.)

[tihocan]

I definitely suggest frequent mass heals in parts 4 & 5. Not only does it clear off the disease, it also makes sure you don't have to worry about poison either.

[dpadan17]

I definitely suggest frequent mass heals in parts 4 & 5. Not only does it clear off the disease, it also makes sure you don't have to worry about poison either.

this.......most groups I'm in rely on this and do it frequently....it does help out considerably. if you still have it when your done. chug a cure curse then cure disease pot. and whala good to go

[stoopid_cowboy]

Thanks man.....I noted your sig line....I have been a portal bashing on m cleric since the second or third shroud. But last night ....again - the cleric was standing there watching the portal beat down. I wasn't in an advice giving mood, but FFS hit the portals.



Hjeal bots piking the portals is a HUUUUGE pet peave of mine. :D
Good news, divine punishment hits the portals HARD! There is no excuse to not DP the portals... (why do I see that line being used in someone's sig?) :D


yuda

[LordPiglet]

Hey,

Have over 40 Shrouds under my belt on my cleric, but I had never got close enough to Harry to sniff his toenails. Now I have a melee build that if finally Shroud flagged.

I got into a Shroud shortly after getting to L17 and crafting the stone. So I go in, know the portals, know the beatdown, two step puzzle and run 4 waters, step into 4 and now my palms are sweating. I have to get up close and personal on Harry.

Almost a 1 rounder - bare sliver left and we finish em off easy....well sorta - I got killed right as we take harry down - cleric claims lag - no problem. Someone hits altar but cleric is still running back to res me....learn something here -New Insight number 1..... it is not as instantaneous fail on raising the dead after part 4 as I thought. On my cleric I was always frantic to get the raise/rez off in a micro second. I am sure I had a full 5-10seconds from the altar hit to getting the raise button. So thats nice to know for my cleric.

Anyway back to round 5 - we go in on the deathbus and everything goes swimmingly - I get kasquiks agro at the end and like a good date guide him right into the circle of love to pin him down. No problems. Casters mana up - New Insight number 3 - that takes for-frickin-ever. I see the last cleric getting close so move back to kasquik to help on his beatdown.....on step up to him and bam dead....oops no deathblock on - dumba$$. Get raised - get re-FOMed (have poison/fire on items) ready to go and take down Harry again.

New Insight number 3 - Harry has huge ankles. Ohh and he kept nailing me with strength debuffs and disease. Never, ever knew that was happening from my wayback position on my cleric.

So.....to the questions - Is there anything I should worry about with Harry's strength and disease effects on my melee? A disease immunity item, I guess, but is that necessary? Would anything else reduce/eliminate the strength damage (it seemed to go away real fast anyway)? As for my cleric - should I be concerned at all about this - should I cast mass heals in the rotation once in a while just to remedy these diseases/strength damage? (usually just rotate mass cure's as primary healer - spot in with mass heals if I am the backup and can tell it's needed).

Oh and a thanks to those in the group (horrible with names so hopefully the above rings a bell if you read it and were in the run)- it was fun to relive the Shroud with a new perspective. Obviously the giddiness of it all got to me since I put up a +2Cha tome for roll.....but I got karma for that since I had a +2 Wis tome in the end rewards list! Not that I really needed either of them....but I can bank it for an alt.

You need deathward to prevent vorpals (trog and kobold).

I prefer to wear disease immunity. I use the nighthag's heartstone since it does have a guard on it. I might end up crafting something for use though.

[Tobril]

Hjeal bots piking the portals is a HUUUUGE pet peave of mine. :D
Good news, divine punishment hits the portals HARD! There is no excuse to not DP the portals... (why do I see that line being used in someone's sig?) :D


yuda


I've always tried to DP anything I come across...:D

[kinar]

An occaisional mass protection from elephants can help save the lower HP melee's life.

I imagine that if a stampede of elephants came through, I would indeed want mass protection from elephants...

But it probably isn't very likely to happen...

[stoopid_cowboy]

I've always tried to DP anything I come across...:D

I have heard the rumors... All I have to say is: Screen shot or it didn't happen. :D


yuda LOLz

[PNellesen]

I agree with you that Mass Heals should be the bread and butter....BUT I get complaints. The masses want cure masses. I PUG it alot so that is probably the difference since there are more squishies that don't want to die in the 9 seconds or so it takes between casts.

I still consider myself a Shroud newb, but what I've noticed is that the guys dancing with Harry aren't quite as squishy if I mainly cast Mass Heal, and save Mass Cures for when the blades come in and I need to heal NOW. I use a noticeably smaller amount of SP this way than if I just spam Mass Cures the entire time. As a melee, I also learned the same lesson about having a disease immunity item on when in the fray - even though Mass Heal will cure you, there are many, many healers out there who choose to cast Mass Cures the entire fight (perfectly ok in my mind, a healer's SP is his or hers to use as they see fit), so it's best to be prepared for either situation.

[Spoonwelder]

You need deathward to prevent vorpals (trog and kobold).

I prefer to wear disease immunity. I use the nighthag's heartstone since it does have a guard on it. I might end up crafting something for use though.

http://ddowiki.com/page/Vorpal

Both deathward and deathblock should stop vorpals. I had neither on at the time though voicechat someone was given the instruction to fire off a mass DW - obviously didn't happen.