Caster's role vs. Pit Fiend in Shroud?

[Strakeln]

Yes, Exhaustion (or fatigue), Ray of Enfeeblement, Strength Sapping, and Symbol of Weakness all lower the damage capabilities of raid bosses and stack (at least, that is what Queen Lailat exhibits when her average physical damage on normal goes from 28 per hit to 13 per hit on normal).

Ray of Enfeeblement won't work on bosses with a "dispellable" (cough sputter cough) mantle.

(I know you are aware of this MrCow, just tacking on additional info)

[MrCow]

Ray of Enfeeblement won't work on bosses with a "dispellable" (cough sputter cough) mantle.

Ray of Enfeeblement from the Staff of Arcane Power will work, however. It is flagged as a 5th level spell-effect and does as the description text states (1d6+7 STR penalty for 12 minutes, which is more potent that a casted 1d6+3 STR penalty for 5 minutes from a caster).

[FoxOne]

Forth, hit Arraetrikos with Dreamspitter or other +5 greater bane stick.

A sorc swinging a dreamspitter at big red!My sorc with his 12 str and 222hp tanking the pit fiend!Most sorcs will be dead before even touching him btw.


A_D usually is spot on about tactics rules and everything else,unless i misread,this is your first statement that makes no sense at all lol

[Angelus_dead]

A sorc swinging a dreamspitter at big red!My sorc with his 12 str and 222hp tanking the pit fiend!Most sorcs will be dead before even touching him btw.

No, I've done it several times. Like I clearly stated, that should be your lowest priority. But the overriding consideration is that sorcerers are not really important there, so once your spellpoints are gone you may as well run up there and do some damage before dying.

As it happens, Shroud clerics pretty frequently have a tendency to overheal- especially if the multiple clerics in the group don't all trust each other to be healing enough. In that case, there will be plenty of extra cures floating around for a 200 hp caster to survive for a bit.

In fact, more than once my sorc has survived long enough to die from the 60 second Pit Fiend Venom effect.

[Strakeln]

Ray of Enfeeblement from the Staff of Arcane Power will work, however. It is flagged as a 5th level spell-effect and does as the description text states (1d6+7 STR penalty for 12 minutes, which is more potent that a casted 1d6+3 STR penalty for 5 minutes from a caster).

OoOoOoOoO, never knew that.

Does it ever make it past the SR (of bosses that have it)?

[Desteria]

A sorc swinging a dreamspitter at big red!My sorc with his 12 str and 222hp tanking the pit fiend!Most sorcs will be dead before even touching him btw.


A_D usually is spot on about tactics rules and everything else,unless i misread,this is your first statement that makes no sense at all lol

meh my 8 str human sorc melles him when i;'m out of SP if i havent looted a wand that works agianst him that run... btu then i do ahve 315 hr with rage

[Desteria]

In my experience, magic or force missile is the best damage-to-mana ratio, especially if you leave the metamagics off. He has no resistance, no shield spell, they never miss, and if you have the damage amplified properly, can do a significant amount of it.

After ensuring I have enough mana for the things A_D mentioned, I spam MM, tuning my metamagic level to the DPS of the group (if it looks like the group will be there 1 round, max and empower on... if it's 2-3 rounds, maximize only... if it's four rounds, no meta at all).

I haven't made an attempt at the math, but I'm pretty sure this is the most effective use of damaging mana on Harry (in terms of damage per point of mana spent) and probably slightly behind other methods in terms of DPS (I think spamming CoC/Disint might put out higher DPS, but MMs will do significantly more cumulative damage).

Not many people have the force damage amplification, so individual mileage may vary. I ran the Shroud with my caster last night and tried to count up the damage I did, I think it was around 7000 - 8000HP of damage total. So it does add up quite a bit.

Polar ray with the codl encments and glacial set does nice damage at good DPS, and you can burn your mana in oen round if you want IE i never expect him to out last oen round or be soo low it doesn't matter if he does.

with them hititng for 300ish criting 700 ish after resists and able to cast 30 or so of them thast um 300x30 er 9000ish before crits crits are VERY ruffly dubbel damage so add 18% more 10620 damage nothign pretacualr but it helps drop his but in one round.

[FoxOne]

No, I've done it several times. Like I clearly stated, that should be your lowest priority. But the overriding consideration is that sorcerers are not really important there, so once your spellpoints are gone you may as well run up there and do some damage before dying.

As it happens, Shroud clerics pretty frequently have a tendency to overheal- especially if the multiple clerics in the group don't all trust each other to be healing enough. In that case, there will be plenty of extra cures floating around for a 200 hp caster to survive for a bit.

In fact, more than once my sorc has survived long enough to die from the 60 second Pit Fiend Venom effect.

It just seems that there is always something to do in there,we usually go 2 clerics and 2 arcanes or sometimes with just 1 arcane so there is always a pool for me to charge from...I usually start with debuffing him,then proceed to nuking till i'm down to about 20% and by the time i fill up or the pool dries up,it's usually time for the last minute all out dps.I still prefer standing around with no mana to tanking the pit fiend for 10 seconds at 10 points? a hit

Also,being a umd sorc,you're much more useful popping heal scrolls than tanking the pit fiend but different strokes for different folks XD

[Desteria]

It just seems that there is always something to do in there,we usually go 2 clerics and 2 arcanes or sometimes with just 1 arcane so there is always a pool for me to charge from...I usually start with debuffing him,then proceed to nuking till i'm down to about 20% and by the time i fill up or the pool dries up,it's usually time for the last minute all out dps.I still prefer standing around with no mana to tanking the pit fiend for 10 seconds at 10 points? a hit

Also,being a umd sorc,you're much more useful popping heal scrolls than tanking the pit fiend but different strokes for different folks XD

well we often take 2 clerics 1-2 arcanes a bard and melle if there are 2 celerics one is already a spare soo throwing heal scrolsl really isent needed at that point.. on an elite run I'll often use mroe scrolsl then the clerics sicne that what i do with 90% of my time they actuly use SP for a lot of it

though recently I havent really had time to do any thign but try and dump my SP as fast as possible and hope i'm out befor he dies

[FoxOne]

well we often take 2 clerics 1-2 arcanes a bard and melle if there are 2 celerics one is already a spare soo throwing heal scrolsl really isent needed at that point.. on an elite run I'll often use mroe scrolsl then the clerics sicne that what i do with 90% of my time they actuly use SP for a lot of it

though recently I havent really had time to do any thign but try and dump my SP as fast as possible and hope i'm out befor he dies

Apparently you have had more luck than I with that...Usually we have one or 2 paper mache armored tanks that need constant healing or just about...that's what i focus on

[Desteria]

Apparently you have had more luck than I with that...Usually we have one or 2 paper mache armored tanks that need constant healing or just about...that's what i focus on

WEll i admit i do a lot fo my runs with the Khyber speed run guys, but even when i don't with a half decent group cleric are normaly just useing group heals though i geus sif i was in a weaker gorup i coudl spot with heal scrolsl or spam off soem MCMW scrolls to help with group healign realyl bene a long time though since our 2 clerics wernt endign with SP left and no scrolsl used, most of our cleric also do the pond dance while they are healing, so they can spam a fail armound of mana healign with out porblems, and the bard often spot heals peopel unless it's battel bard.

[Mindspat]

If the debuffs do not stack against other players, I am rather doubting they stack in PvE. We have no other way to test them. Using our PvP environment is how I test spells. One other way to check if they stack is to play with the living spells in the subterrain. Once you hit them with ray of enfeeblement, exhaustion, and symbol of weakness they are impotent. The other (non-stacking) debuffs show up on other players' and mobs' inspection sheets, even though (in PvP) they don't really stack. Anyhow, it saved me a lot of debuff spell slots using this knowledge.

As for the strength/dexterity debuffs I do not know, but I am 100% positive the exhaustive effects from Waves of Exhaustion and Waves of Fatigue which slow mobs in fact do stack. Applying Ray of Exhaustion further decreases movement speed as well using Strenght Sapping will further reduce it. It is very possible that certain Purple mobs might be affected differently wereas all normal and red named mobs are affected from these spells being stacked.

[Mindspat]

A sorc swinging a dreamspitter at big red!My sorc with his 12 str and 222hp tanking the pit fiend!Most sorcs will be dead before even touching him btw.

Be sure to use Divine Power clickies!!

[gfunk]

OoOoOoOoO, never knew that.

Does it ever make it past the SR (of bosses that have it)?

Yes... I cast it off the staff my sorc has on Harry and the Reaver every 3 days. I would say it takes me two attempts on average to get the Reaver with it, and 3 attempts to get Harry.

And on the other days when I am running my melees... no one bothers to debuff Harry... /sigh.... /sighs again.../feels sorry for clerics.../coughs up some dough for the clerics...

[HumanJHawkins]

<cut>Damage spells do not work well on Arraetrikos. He's completely immune to the obvious things like Wall of Fire, and has around 30 resist to cold and acid. <cut>

FYI, I get all red numbers (except for the immune to slicing) when I use my Acid/Good Mineral II. So I am pretty sure that Harry does not have any resistance to Acid.

[Desteria]

FYI, I get all red numbers (except for the immune to slicing) when I use my Acid/Good Mineral II. So I am pretty sure that Harry does not have any resistance to Acid.

what are you smoking....

When i use any of my min 2's i get a nice string of numbers with NO IMMUNES, I doo however see white 0's for the acid damage, maby you have soem how reset your colloe fro fully resisted damage to red becasue there is NO way a min2 weaposn shoudl get all red if it has acid damage.
Also when my sorc puts an acid fog on him unless it crits is does little or no damage (not spec'ed for acid) and when it DOES do soem it is always a YELLOW number ie reduced buy resistance.

in DDO very little is actuly imune to slicing even elmetals bleed ffs mostly just undead and constructs form what I've seen, thats what makes it soo nice an efect to get as a bonus on min2.

[BelVic]

Last couple weeks were pretty laggy for shroud. In one late night run in part 4 we had 80 % mellee die in second round but still killed boss ( because of lag healing). So in part 5 I decided to do prot fire and stoneskin to reduce chance to die from lag. I was just rotating these 2 buffs on 5-7 melee in party and somehow nobody died and one cleric of two even had some SP left. Stoneskin not very cheap but heal scrolls also not cheap for clerics.