Muykul
12-01-2006, 08:54 AM
=============================================
SPOILER WARNING
=============================================
I ran the Demon Queen for the first time last night with members from two other guilds, and we were able to take her down on my second attempt. We had quite a non-conventional build of only 11 members but still managed to take her down. The following is a strategy we used. While this strategy will work, I advise you to seek out other strategies and comments here in the forums to enhance the following.
Don't even try...
The Demon Queen (DQ) is a Demon, so put all your reptilian bane away. Her saves are ridiculously high so with few exceptions you can forget about casting anything on her that she saves against. At various times throughout the battle she protects herself against all the elements and even without these protections she's immune or highly resistant to electricity, fire and acid. She's also known to Shield herself, so forget about Magic Missile / Force Balls and as a special bonus - she casts mantle of invulnerability on herself (lvl 4 and below spell immunity.)
So what works?
For the most part you are going to have to damage her with melee attacks (if you have a super tank, everything else she destroys instantly) range or certain spells. For Melee (snicker) and range, go silver, holy and pure good (or any combination thereof.) For the casters, always have her "inspected" (click on her then press "z") to see what she's immune to. When you first start the battle Magic Missile works great, until she casts shield. Then Fireball works (she has a high resist though) until she casts protection from fire. You can also get pretty lucky with Ice Storm for both cold and concussion damage until she drops cold protect. The other spell that works for full damage is Nimbus of Light or Searing Light. Have everyone with a decent UMD carry wands of this, and all your clerics.
What attacks does she have?
If you've gotten this far you've already fought her twice, and she's pretty much the same beast. Ungodly melee attacks, overrun with her tail (dex check) followed by balance checks to get up (DC 16-20ish.) She also casts a variety of spells including traditional blade barrier, burning blood, a special hold person that lasts 3-5 seconds and blinds you and several other spells etc.
How do I do it?
#1 - Get Prepped
There is a lot of confusion about which raid and quest is which so let me lay that down quickly. Everyone needs to do four quests to get to the raid. The first three are picked up in Zwabi's Refuge.
Offering of Blood (Spiral of the Vulkoor)
Chains of Flame (Firebrand ???)
Chamber of Raiyum (????)
All three of these quests are in the desert and maps to them and quest tips can be found elsewhere. You can do these three quests in ANY ORDER. ***IMPORTANT*** once completing one of these quests, talk to the quest giver for a reward and quest item. Then run the quest item over to the effriti in the south east corner of Zwabi's Refuge. Talk to him, he wants three items. Give him the item you have and then proceed to the next two quests. Once you have given him all three items, he opens a fourth quest called "Against the Demon Queen." This is the raid pre-quest, but its not accomplished in raid format. Its another 6 person quests in the desert. Once again, find a guide - cause its not very easy. Once you complete this quest you turn it into the effriti in Zwabi's reffuge and he gives you the actual Demon Queen raid, which you enter by talking to the effriti.
#2 - Raid Prep
This was by far the hardest and yet most exciting raid I've ever done. Unlike the Titan which killed me my first few times in less than 30 seconds. Both times I entered the raid we survived an hour or more, with our final kill taking 100 minutes. Make sure you've got all the following items.
Fire Resist Potions (protect two, but not required.)
Feather Fall Item (No, not an item or casting it. You need a perma item.)
Healing Potions (Clerics are not going to be able to keep up all the time)
Wands of Searing Light (Everyone with any UMD needs 3-4 of these)
Scrolls of Blade Barrier (I'll explain later.)
As far as part makeup is concerned, you'll almost surely need a tank w/ striding boots or barbarian, 2 or more dex based / evasion whatever (rangers, rogues etc..) 3-4 clerics (less if you're lucky) and a caster or two. Everyone else is fairly swappable.
#3 - Lets do it!
When you first enter the quest you come upon a long fire corridor. In it spawns fire mephits and effreti / djinni. Give every a fire resist and go to town. This is only two or three little rooms to clear and then there’s a shrine. Burn mana, kill kill kill. There should be no issues getting through here. When you get to the end of the tunnel, make sure you've got everyone and go in.
#4 - Shrine baby, yeah!
Have everyone without manna hit the shrine, and then buff them like there is no tomorrow. Everyone needs extended Fire Resist preferably from a lvl 12 caster. The following buffs are also highly recommended and feel free to extend them all (the next part is very long.)
Spell Resistance, Bear's Endurance, Aid, Good Hope, Blur*/Displacement, Hero's Feast, Barkskin, Stoneskin, Bless, Prayer*, anything else that helps combat
*Save till the end / right before going in
As usual, have the casters buff till they have zero mana, then have one shrine, buff him, then have the next shrine until everyone is buffed except one cleric/caster then buff him. You are now raid ready. Proceed through the large glowing door and into the DQ.
#5 – Prep the Area
When you first enter the DQ you are in a large summoning circle, similar to the 2nd time you fight the DQ in Against the Demon Queen. The major differences are that there are no firewalls to block you from getting off after you agro her, its much bigger / more room to run around and the pillars are huge.
The first thing you want to do is drop extended cloud kills on top of all the pillars. There are no gnolls there now, but there will be. Make sure they are extended, and you’ll have to target the tops of the pillars manually. Have everyone gather in the center for an extended haste and tehn spread out away from here, towards the edges of the summoning circle. Then have a tank talk to her / start the fight.
#6 – Have at her!
This is the best time to attack her. She’s got very few (if any) protections up. You can Magic Missle her, she doesn’t have cold or any other protect up. Keep kiting her and stay away from any nasty spells she drops. You should be able to get her down 10% - 20% fairly quickly. But that’s when the trouble starts…
The following is a system we devised to deal with the DQ when she teleports to the “outer edge.” She will do this many times, and each time she does – you will need to do the following.
When the DQ disappears, she goes to one of the rocks to the side of the summoning circle. No, you can’t jump over there. As she teleports she also spawns 8 or so of the old style blade barriers, gnolls on all the pillars and several effreti. If you are not an evasion build (rogue, ranger, dex fighter etc..) then JUMP DOWN. You can stay and try to dodge the moving blade barriers, but you will die. The gnolls qill quickly die, and the effreti can be ignored (the fighters will take care of them later.)
At the bottom of the room for those who jumped off the summoning circle is lava, 6-8 effreti and a glowing door. The first thing you want to do, is have the quick tank / barbarian agro all the effreti and run them around the big circle. There is no reason to fight them, they all respawn. It might take a minute or two, but don’t’ fight them, just kite them / run them around. Once the quick tank had agro, CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve found yourself a job for the next 30-40 minutes. You are going to need the time at the bottom to heal / rez and buff up and respawning effreti will not allow that. This is the best way to deal with them that I have found.
Back in the summoning circle, our evasion / ranged characters need to attack the demon queen on her rock. The more quickly you damage her, the quicker she comes back which kills the blade barriers. I’ve had her come back within 10 seconds, and its also taken a minute or more. No one else can come back up here with the blade barriers around so have at her. Once she teleports back and the blade barriers are down, move her away from the center of the summoning circle, and then signal the all clear. At that point anyone at the bottom (except the quick tank) double click on the glowing portal which takes you back to the summoning circle.
#7 – A quick word on death
When you die in the summoning circle you are not able to jump or fall down to the bottom to get rezzed. It is not uncommon that several people will die in the summoning circle when se swans blade barriers, and the best way to rez them is to have one of the evasion characters to grab all the stones and jump down themselves. Rezzing at the bottom is normal. Use the bottom (while the quick fighter runs the effreti around) as a place to gather, buff and re-group. This is an EXTREMELY hectic quest, and it only takes one bad move to wipe the party. It is always a good measure to leave one cleric down below to rez with the tank running the effreti around.
#8 – Back to the action…
At this point you have completed one “cycle.” You attacked her, she teleported out spawning gnolls, effreti and blade barriers causing you to jump down and evasion fighters to range her until she comes back. You must repeat this cycle many times, working down her HP until she gets to about 10%. Keep a constant look at her particulars, seeing what spells she is immune to and not using them. The only spells that worked the entire time were nimbus of light, searing light and blade barrier. Wizzies and Sorcs need to pay special attention and a better use of their time is probably buffing, or keeping the extended cloud kills on the pillars. When coming back into the summoning circle, be sure that the blade barriers are gone (or that you have evasion) and that the demon queen is not in the middle of the circle. If she is in the middle and you spawn there she can wipe the entire party in seconds / assuming everyone comes. Tanks without descent ranged weapons are needed to take care of spawns in the summoning circle, and can also “help” with hit-and-run tactics. Don’t try and tank the DQ, or you will most certainly die quickly.
#9 – Final push…
Once she drops down to 10% or so, the situation changes. The blade barriers stop sweeping from side to side of the top area, and start randomly moving within the summoning circle itself. At this point, they don’t go away until she dies. If your evasion fighters are good enough, they can take her down, but it will take time. All thought the blade barriers don’t “leave” the circle you can – so hug the edge of the circle (often they won’t hit you) and if you get down to far on HPs JUMP OFF. At this point everyone’s mana should be pretty well drained, and we used blade barrier scrolls around the edges to kill her off. Melee / Ranged works just as well. Once she gets down to 0% everything un-spawns and the chest appears up top. The loot is similar to Dragon, one chest for everyone (I got crappy +5 leather / sigh) and another chest with 2 “better than average” items. We got a nice Anachtic Kopesh and Sonte Skin ring w/ +3 Natual AC.
I hope this has been helpful to guilds and groups wanting to run the DQ. Admittedly, this was only my second run through, but I think this strategy works well. Feel free to comment below and I’ll try and incorporate them into my strategy above.
Regards,
-Muykul
SPOILER WARNING
=============================================
I ran the Demon Queen for the first time last night with members from two other guilds, and we were able to take her down on my second attempt. We had quite a non-conventional build of only 11 members but still managed to take her down. The following is a strategy we used. While this strategy will work, I advise you to seek out other strategies and comments here in the forums to enhance the following.
Don't even try...
The Demon Queen (DQ) is a Demon, so put all your reptilian bane away. Her saves are ridiculously high so with few exceptions you can forget about casting anything on her that she saves against. At various times throughout the battle she protects herself against all the elements and even without these protections she's immune or highly resistant to electricity, fire and acid. She's also known to Shield herself, so forget about Magic Missile / Force Balls and as a special bonus - she casts mantle of invulnerability on herself (lvl 4 and below spell immunity.)
So what works?
For the most part you are going to have to damage her with melee attacks (if you have a super tank, everything else she destroys instantly) range or certain spells. For Melee (snicker) and range, go silver, holy and pure good (or any combination thereof.) For the casters, always have her "inspected" (click on her then press "z") to see what she's immune to. When you first start the battle Magic Missile works great, until she casts shield. Then Fireball works (she has a high resist though) until she casts protection from fire. You can also get pretty lucky with Ice Storm for both cold and concussion damage until she drops cold protect. The other spell that works for full damage is Nimbus of Light or Searing Light. Have everyone with a decent UMD carry wands of this, and all your clerics.
What attacks does she have?
If you've gotten this far you've already fought her twice, and she's pretty much the same beast. Ungodly melee attacks, overrun with her tail (dex check) followed by balance checks to get up (DC 16-20ish.) She also casts a variety of spells including traditional blade barrier, burning blood, a special hold person that lasts 3-5 seconds and blinds you and several other spells etc.
How do I do it?
#1 - Get Prepped
There is a lot of confusion about which raid and quest is which so let me lay that down quickly. Everyone needs to do four quests to get to the raid. The first three are picked up in Zwabi's Refuge.
Offering of Blood (Spiral of the Vulkoor)
Chains of Flame (Firebrand ???)
Chamber of Raiyum (????)
All three of these quests are in the desert and maps to them and quest tips can be found elsewhere. You can do these three quests in ANY ORDER. ***IMPORTANT*** once completing one of these quests, talk to the quest giver for a reward and quest item. Then run the quest item over to the effriti in the south east corner of Zwabi's Refuge. Talk to him, he wants three items. Give him the item you have and then proceed to the next two quests. Once you have given him all three items, he opens a fourth quest called "Against the Demon Queen." This is the raid pre-quest, but its not accomplished in raid format. Its another 6 person quests in the desert. Once again, find a guide - cause its not very easy. Once you complete this quest you turn it into the effriti in Zwabi's reffuge and he gives you the actual Demon Queen raid, which you enter by talking to the effriti.
#2 - Raid Prep
This was by far the hardest and yet most exciting raid I've ever done. Unlike the Titan which killed me my first few times in less than 30 seconds. Both times I entered the raid we survived an hour or more, with our final kill taking 100 minutes. Make sure you've got all the following items.
Fire Resist Potions (protect two, but not required.)
Feather Fall Item (No, not an item or casting it. You need a perma item.)
Healing Potions (Clerics are not going to be able to keep up all the time)
Wands of Searing Light (Everyone with any UMD needs 3-4 of these)
Scrolls of Blade Barrier (I'll explain later.)
As far as part makeup is concerned, you'll almost surely need a tank w/ striding boots or barbarian, 2 or more dex based / evasion whatever (rangers, rogues etc..) 3-4 clerics (less if you're lucky) and a caster or two. Everyone else is fairly swappable.
#3 - Lets do it!
When you first enter the quest you come upon a long fire corridor. In it spawns fire mephits and effreti / djinni. Give every a fire resist and go to town. This is only two or three little rooms to clear and then there’s a shrine. Burn mana, kill kill kill. There should be no issues getting through here. When you get to the end of the tunnel, make sure you've got everyone and go in.
#4 - Shrine baby, yeah!
Have everyone without manna hit the shrine, and then buff them like there is no tomorrow. Everyone needs extended Fire Resist preferably from a lvl 12 caster. The following buffs are also highly recommended and feel free to extend them all (the next part is very long.)
Spell Resistance, Bear's Endurance, Aid, Good Hope, Blur*/Displacement, Hero's Feast, Barkskin, Stoneskin, Bless, Prayer*, anything else that helps combat
*Save till the end / right before going in
As usual, have the casters buff till they have zero mana, then have one shrine, buff him, then have the next shrine until everyone is buffed except one cleric/caster then buff him. You are now raid ready. Proceed through the large glowing door and into the DQ.
#5 – Prep the Area
When you first enter the DQ you are in a large summoning circle, similar to the 2nd time you fight the DQ in Against the Demon Queen. The major differences are that there are no firewalls to block you from getting off after you agro her, its much bigger / more room to run around and the pillars are huge.
The first thing you want to do is drop extended cloud kills on top of all the pillars. There are no gnolls there now, but there will be. Make sure they are extended, and you’ll have to target the tops of the pillars manually. Have everyone gather in the center for an extended haste and tehn spread out away from here, towards the edges of the summoning circle. Then have a tank talk to her / start the fight.
#6 – Have at her!
This is the best time to attack her. She’s got very few (if any) protections up. You can Magic Missle her, she doesn’t have cold or any other protect up. Keep kiting her and stay away from any nasty spells she drops. You should be able to get her down 10% - 20% fairly quickly. But that’s when the trouble starts…
The following is a system we devised to deal with the DQ when she teleports to the “outer edge.” She will do this many times, and each time she does – you will need to do the following.
When the DQ disappears, she goes to one of the rocks to the side of the summoning circle. No, you can’t jump over there. As she teleports she also spawns 8 or so of the old style blade barriers, gnolls on all the pillars and several effreti. If you are not an evasion build (rogue, ranger, dex fighter etc..) then JUMP DOWN. You can stay and try to dodge the moving blade barriers, but you will die. The gnolls qill quickly die, and the effreti can be ignored (the fighters will take care of them later.)
At the bottom of the room for those who jumped off the summoning circle is lava, 6-8 effreti and a glowing door. The first thing you want to do, is have the quick tank / barbarian agro all the effreti and run them around the big circle. There is no reason to fight them, they all respawn. It might take a minute or two, but don’t’ fight them, just kite them / run them around. Once the quick tank had agro, CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve found yourself a job for the next 30-40 minutes. You are going to need the time at the bottom to heal / rez and buff up and respawning effreti will not allow that. This is the best way to deal with them that I have found.
Back in the summoning circle, our evasion / ranged characters need to attack the demon queen on her rock. The more quickly you damage her, the quicker she comes back which kills the blade barriers. I’ve had her come back within 10 seconds, and its also taken a minute or more. No one else can come back up here with the blade barriers around so have at her. Once she teleports back and the blade barriers are down, move her away from the center of the summoning circle, and then signal the all clear. At that point anyone at the bottom (except the quick tank) double click on the glowing portal which takes you back to the summoning circle.
#7 – A quick word on death
When you die in the summoning circle you are not able to jump or fall down to the bottom to get rezzed. It is not uncommon that several people will die in the summoning circle when se swans blade barriers, and the best way to rez them is to have one of the evasion characters to grab all the stones and jump down themselves. Rezzing at the bottom is normal. Use the bottom (while the quick fighter runs the effreti around) as a place to gather, buff and re-group. This is an EXTREMELY hectic quest, and it only takes one bad move to wipe the party. It is always a good measure to leave one cleric down below to rez with the tank running the effreti around.
#8 – Back to the action…
At this point you have completed one “cycle.” You attacked her, she teleported out spawning gnolls, effreti and blade barriers causing you to jump down and evasion fighters to range her until she comes back. You must repeat this cycle many times, working down her HP until she gets to about 10%. Keep a constant look at her particulars, seeing what spells she is immune to and not using them. The only spells that worked the entire time were nimbus of light, searing light and blade barrier. Wizzies and Sorcs need to pay special attention and a better use of their time is probably buffing, or keeping the extended cloud kills on the pillars. When coming back into the summoning circle, be sure that the blade barriers are gone (or that you have evasion) and that the demon queen is not in the middle of the circle. If she is in the middle and you spawn there she can wipe the entire party in seconds / assuming everyone comes. Tanks without descent ranged weapons are needed to take care of spawns in the summoning circle, and can also “help” with hit-and-run tactics. Don’t try and tank the DQ, or you will most certainly die quickly.
#9 – Final push…
Once she drops down to 10% or so, the situation changes. The blade barriers stop sweeping from side to side of the top area, and start randomly moving within the summoning circle itself. At this point, they don’t go away until she dies. If your evasion fighters are good enough, they can take her down, but it will take time. All thought the blade barriers don’t “leave” the circle you can – so hug the edge of the circle (often they won’t hit you) and if you get down to far on HPs JUMP OFF. At this point everyone’s mana should be pretty well drained, and we used blade barrier scrolls around the edges to kill her off. Melee / Ranged works just as well. Once she gets down to 0% everything un-spawns and the chest appears up top. The loot is similar to Dragon, one chest for everyone (I got crappy +5 leather / sigh) and another chest with 2 “better than average” items. We got a nice Anachtic Kopesh and Sonte Skin ring w/ +3 Natual AC.
I hope this has been helpful to guilds and groups wanting to run the DQ. Admittedly, this was only my second run through, but I think this strategy works well. Feel free to comment below and I’ll try and incorporate them into my strategy above.
Regards,
-Muykul