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View Full Version : Elite Weapons Shipment: A Post-U11 Review



nomaddog
09-15-2011, 03:37 PM
Last night a few guildies and couple of friends decided to check out the new Weapons Shipment. We were all level 20's, so we decided to give it a go on elite. Party consisted of 2 Necro/Enchant spec'd Archmages, FvS, Cleric, Spellsinger Bard, and a Fighter/Monk.

The run through the cavern was unchanged and rather uneventful. Once we zoned into the end fight though, all the changes made were evident. Immediately, we were facing a horde of Shavarath archers. When I say horde, I mean probably 12-20 in one shot. We did some basic crowd control, thinned out the group, but then were attacked by several hellhounds before all of the Archers were dead. This may have been because we had several things fascinated, but who knows. Release notes said next wave spawns when all are dead or charmed.

Still no big deal, but there was A LOT of stuff. We hit orange dungeon alert 3 or 4 times in the quest, usually when a new wave spawned. The waves spawn on a specific timer, not on when the previous wave is all dead. It was continuous wave after wave of baddies from Shav: Archers, Casters, Hellhounds, Bearded Devils, Orthons, and Succubi. We laid down MASSIVE crowd control to keep everything tame.

There was general agreement from the party that the changes made have increased the enjoyability of the quest immensely. Liella no longer sits in her circle, but now has a force field bubble around her. They shortened the distance between the cave entrance and the gate the Titan comes through. You are still able to go back into the cave and shrine, you just need to do it in shifts rather than all at once.

At the end of elite, you do get 3 chests, all with the possibility of dropping Bauble/Arrowhead. Nothing dropped for anybody except some boot ingredients. Overall, two thumbs up for the quest changes. Infinitely more enjoyable. Thanks Turbine.

Skeptisaurus
09-15-2011, 06:38 PM
Yes definitely more challenging - went in with a pretty competent PUG on my 20 TR cleric and we were destroyed due to lack of crowd control. CC is a must now in this quest. No more running for refreshments during the end fight. If you let the waves of enemies start stacking up, game-over time comes very rapidly.

Rawel_San
09-15-2011, 06:53 PM
Ran this on a capped well geared PM soloing with a piker at the beginning to up the scaling a little as well as be
able to swap for a different toons bauble.. I don't think the spawns are timer based (or at least not only timer
based) since clearing a wave definitely starts a new one. It seemed to me that even just clearing "most" of a wave
i.e. 10 of the 12 beginning archers spawned the next wave. The fight was very easy with torc +2 conc opps and a
high necro dc. The incoming damage was surprisingly small (scaling plays a part in that as well as dr 10/piercing)
the archers in particular plink for so little with 2 people that shield blocking gets me to no mana regen (0's for
damage).

My method was no cc at all except charming 4 of the first archers so I could spawn the next wave and use them
for mana batteries throughout the waves. The part I was most afraid of originally was the casters and then
the succubi wave but neither of those seems to have empower/maximize so the spell damage was easily
manageable as well.

Kiting + positioning +mana regen from torc/conc opps make the quest quite easy. If you have no torc/conc opp I'd
recommend making sure to have at least 2 healers or one healer and one light healer that can do some kiting
while healer goes to shrine.

I intend to check exactly what the spawns depend on since I think that if you keep a full wave you don't get a
new one (i.e. I believe that a new wave only spawns after some amount of the last wave has been killed)
If that's the case you should be able to shrine during the orthon or succubi wave as long as you have a decent
kiter+reflex for succubi or dr tank for the orthons plinking ammo.

Skeptisaurus
09-15-2011, 08:45 PM
Sounds like it's timed if you don't kill the wave as well as triggered by killing the wave - nice.

Raveneia
09-15-2011, 09:17 PM
Did this last night with 3 guildies just 3 of us so not a full party.
I found it more fun I wasn't falling asleep like i usually do and being the sorc i get to lay down ice storms which helped kill everything alot quicker than usual.
At first i was amazed how much it had changed and to turn around and have 20 something archers firing at you i was amazed I've never seen that many mobs in a quest or raid not even in EDA.

No one died except me once because those succubi teleport and seen me in my hiding place but apart from that i loved it.

I like the 3 chest option my bf and I have ran way too many of these on elite in the past month for our baubles but nothing ever drops no matter how many times you try. So hopefully now everyone has a better chance.