First time in the Shroud with my sorc.

[bigtaff]

OK, just capped my first toon, a sorc. Now I'm Shroud ready and want to get some info from those who know as to what is expected of a sorc in a Shroud group. This way I have some idea what I'm doing first couple of times in.

[RioRussell]

it is going to depend (somewhat) on how you are spec'd. std buffs will be GH, blur, resistances, and protection. have all of those.

in the first part you will be designated to clear the trash mobs. FoD if you can get past their spell resistance. enervate works well for the orthons if you are having a hard time landing the FoD.

In part 2, you will need to have disentegrate or wall of fire to break the crystal after the 4 names are killed. make sure you communicate that this is your first time, it is real frustrating to coordinate getting all 4 killed and then trust the sorc to just 'know what to do' only to find them running around aimlessly. Also, if earth ele is one of the 4 you will probably be asked to be the one to damage him. a good acid fog + firewall should do the trick.

In part 4, you can help the party most with crowd control at the beginning, and FoD for the devils. a good guide is to spend 50% of your mana on devils + nuking harry, then save for the 2nd round to FoD gnolls and then see how many rounds it will go. Also, any debuffs you can apply here are good (although more crucial in part 5 imo). You want to have fireshield (cold) for yourself and drop the occasional mass prot on the tanks in the middle to keep your clerics going.

Part 5, debuffs work great. weakness + exhaustion + enfeeblement makes medoicre tanks shine in this part. use pools when you can. polar ray and mm are probably your best damage spells, also ball lightning.

hope this helps, you'll learn alot and don't be afraid to let the party leader know it's your first time.

[Shade]

Primary objective: Always cast buffs, the melee rule the shroud so your a support class like it or not. The challenge here is the red named, so keep the melee in top shape for those.

Phase 1, Kill everything. With a good necromancy DC and fast FoD finger no one can challenge your killing speed, so get em all, lets the melee focus more on the portals.
However, ALWAYS hit the portal when there are no spawns around - standing around twidling your thumbs and drawing respawn agro is not helping. Auto attack the portal, even if you do 0 dmg.

Phase 2, Again, kill everything. Your a sorcerer thats what we do. Its mostly devils tho, so its remarkably more difficult.. Soimetimes a enervate + fod is better. Beyond that, be ready to cast displacement and haste on the melee, there better alive vorpaling then you casting 1 more FoD and failing.

For the named: If there is some easy ones like the cat or earth elemental, you can tank and destroy them pretty fast with a well firewall + acid fog. Otherwise stick to haste/displacemetn duty.

Phase 3: Do your puzle, knock all the doors, get a water, load the water. Always take knock for shroud - it' a lvl2 spell, there aren't other important ones besides web and resist so do yourself a favor and have it to contribute on the raid.

Phase 4: Buff. Kill stuff. Pretty straightforward. One good strategy is to gather everyone at any corner, and cast 2-3 hieghtened webs after arraetrikos leaves the fi rst round.. That way the 4 teelportting devils will likely get trapped and unable to teleprot away - then its just an easy enervate + fod, or vorpal and therw down in seconds. Gnoll phase - kill all the gnols, even the ones the melee are attacking, that will make them hit the pit fiend sooner heh.

Phase 5:
Debuff. So many sorcs discount the power of this. It can make the difference between a zero resource run, and a cleric drinking 2-3 mana pots and 30+ scrolls burned.
Debuffs that work easily and do not require droping any important killign spells to get:
Ray of Enfeeblement (lvl1) - Easy to land as theres no save, just try until you roll past the SR. Ideally use the staff of arcane power as it has a stronger version (1d6+7 vs 1d6+6)
Waves of Fatigue - again a no save spell, hit him asap.
Exhaustion - I generally dont carry this one as it requires a nice spell slot ( lvl3 or 7) however if you have all the spell pen enhancements you can hit him with a waves of exhaustion scroll on normal. Generally takes a roll of 19-20 so takes a while, but if the groups dps is low, its still worth it.

After the debuffing is done ,focus on buffing the melee. Cast haste, and then rage multiple times to ensure everyone has it. Don't worry about dmg spells as you won;t contribute much in that way.

Personally I sometimes help melee him with my Dreamspitter.. But that does require top notch healing and full buffs to accomplish on a 202 hp sorc heh.

[captain1z]

I found my 1st time in with my caster pretty rough and was ashamed of my performance.

Now it better, but not perfect.

Round 1 a good strategy that does the job while saving sp for the long haul is to drag mobs to the portals where everyone else is. You can do this by casting a non-extended firewall or acid cloud on the portal, then jump in the middle of your party. This draws mobs in to the group which is already swinging away at the portal (trust me mobs wont last more than 2-3 seconds) and saves you sp. At one point you return to the center court yard where u zone in and Ive noticed the worst fights tend to happen down here. Make sure to have that area booby trapped in whatever way you feel is best for devils. ** keep group perma-hasted**

round 2 as stated earlier buff the party well, regain sp and just break the crystal in the center when its time. You may be asked to do something else more combat related if they dont feel u r the right person for the job, then it becomes more like a normal encounter.

round 3 solve puzzle run water and buff everyone after the rest. designate an area for this to happen.

round 4 kill trash mobs and gnolls, buff party, perma haste and mass protect if u can. keep yourself protected with:

resist fire, protection from fire(energy), fire shield (ice version) at all times - use scrolls if u must they work just fine. avoid the ring of blades and always watch where harry tosses those fireballs - move

round 5 buff party, perma haste, cast pro mass energy, heal WF if u can. I personally dont attack harry in part 5 as I feel the damage Im doing is not worth the sp and a haste better serves to hurt him more than any spell I have. Also my other efforts will save the healers some sp... I just dont see the point in attacking him in a group with good dps. *** Debuffs and clouds on harry are totally worth it - clouds at the very least are a huge help (just 1 or 2 dont go crazy)**

[Hadrian]

After the debuffing is done ,focus on buffing the melee. Cast haste, and then rage multiple times to ensure everyone has it. Don't worry about dmg spells as you won;t contribute much in that way.

Is this serious or are you trolling?

Casters can do quite a bit of damage with spells like polar ray, ball lightning and cone of cold. Certainly it is important to debuff first, as it lowers incoming damage and decreases his chance to make a save. I would also suggest casting any fog spells you have on the pit fiend or where you know he will be to further reduce the damage the group takes and allow your clerics some time and spell points for offensive casting as well.

If you have a bard, let him spend his spell points on haste and rage. If you do not, but you have more than one caster, decide between you which will be doing buffs so that you do not waste points casting over eachother.

[PSU93]

And don't forget to use the pools to get your mana back when the fighting's done. In part 2, our group usually waits until the Clerics and casters have full blue bars before going after the Red Names. In part 5, we'll take down all the Red Names except 1 (usually Kobold), which we block in a corner while the casters get their mana back for Harry.

I've found Polar Ray works best on Harry, but you can't take that until 16 (15 if wizzy). Disintegrate probably does the next best damage but can be inefficient from a SP standpoint because Harry saves well against it.

[Venar]

Many ways to do it.
Depends if you are the only caster, for exemple.

Part 1:
Make sure to have a 2-handed weapon, something like a +5 anarchic maul of pure good, to hit the portals. With bard songs and rage and a +6 STR item, you WILL do damage. This is for the times when you are second caster, or when a melee decides to clear.
I like to carry a greater spell penetration 6 item, and just use Hold Monster on Orthon. It's really easy to land compared to FoD (better Spell pen, and will save is lower then fort). So, Hold em, then switch to a puncturing pick and kill it.

Your role greatly vary here to be honnest. Somedays, you will notice everyone fights outside the crowd control, and melee go after trash mobs. Bah, it's not a competition, if they dont need you, just beat the portal.


Part 2: Run to south central, and lay some help: Webs, fogs, even a dancing ball. Then, i stand back and HOLD monster the Orthons (biggest bad guy here). Then i conserve and let the melee kill things.
They are more efficient killers then you in this part, and will appreciate not waiting 5 minutes while you tumble in a tree after. Sorcs telling you to kill things in this part are show-offs.

Make sure you can go toe-to-toe with an elemental (fire or Earth). Acid Fog + Polar Ray works well for both. I carry an Acid Lore item to increase damage.
Crystal breaking is easy, cast a firewall and an Acid fog in advance on the crystal, and then spam backspace to target it quickly in case its not borken in the first millisecond.


Part 3: Knock help, but dont respec just for it. Rogues are there too, and people really should be able to do puzzle now. If someone tries to blame you for not having knock, remind them that the real person to blame is the guy unable to solve his puzzle when there are solvers online.


Part 4: One step back for a web and a fog. Then i just Hold Orthons. Fire shield? Err, dont have the slot for it, scroll are so short is ridiculous, i never use it and i dont die. Just run around a lot.
First priority is to lay fogs. I cast Acid and CK, since i have them.
Then i debuff (ray of enfeeb, Ray of Exhaust, Wave of fatigue), all using my Greater spell pen 6 item.
Then i nuke a little.
I agree with Shade here, your dmg helps, but it's definitly not that great. Polar Rays for 500+ on critic? Yes, it's nice. That TWF ranger in there is probably doing 60+ a swing on non-crit for about 20 swings by the time you cast another ray. Even a good Paladin spaming Divine sacrifice will do the same DPS you are.
So yes, nuke, it helps, but, first and foremost, DO NOT RUN OUT OF SP. You are haste, you are Gnoll killer, you are Fogs. Stay alive and functional.
Between rounds, 1 web, then enervate someties.


Part 5: Everyone is tired, so please, please, don't go nuke crazy on the miniboss. Why? Because, here is a secret: The party can handle the miniboss without you, and, waiting for a sorcerer to refill 2500 SP in a pool is bad. The time saved killing the mini-boss faster with nuking is not worth the time lost tumbling in the pool.
So, as the party rez, Haste, then lay 1 fog to indicate fight zone, offer to peel-pull with MM (never miss, never hit wrong mob), then complete GH and fire resist on people.
As Harry gets down, lay fogs, debuff, and then nuke. Nuke as you wish, but make sure the party is fogged and hasted. Make sure to re-fire and haste people who die. And help the cleric healing that big WF barbarian. He's doing more DPS alive and on Reconstruct speed then you.

[FluffyCalico]

Part 1> Let melee take the origional trash before first portal (saves sp) FoD the trash while portal team does its thing. If you are getting orthon trash while roaming you are doing something very wrong

Part 2> That crystal takes full damage from lighting and polar hits for alot. There is no reason you can not 2 shot this crystal even without being lighting spec or having desenagrate. You should be able to help on any boss.

Part 3> Knock

Part 4> 1 web and some sort of fog (solid, acid, cloud kill) a round will work for the CC (DB is good but you will lag out the bad pcs so don't do it in part 4), On boss, hit each round with Ray of enfeeble and waves of exhaustion, the knolls with green comming from thier hands finger immediately. Buff party, Extra sp burn with polar ray

Part 5> Ray of enfeeble and waves of exhaustion him, will last whole fight. Buff party, Extra SP burn with polar ray.

Edit: in 4 and 5 put a fire shield cold on yourself if you are a low HP model (below 250). Also a feared cleric can't heal anyone, make sure and GH them every time they shrine.

[FluffyCalico]

Many ways to do it.
Depends if you are the only caster, for exemple.

Part 1:
Make sure to have a 2-handed weapon, something like a +5 anarchic maul of pure good, to hit the portals.

.

Caster should not be near the friggin portal. Finger the stuff from far away that way you don't take any damage. At max range you can finger it all before any of it reaches you. If you are close enough to the portal to hit it you are standing in the wrong place. As a sorc you will be the only person not beating the portal. You do your part and let the other 11 beat the portal. Now if there is a 2nd caster sure 1 of you should beat portal as 1 caster roming is plenty.

[Shade]

Caster should not be near the friggin portal. Finger the stuff from far away that way you don't take any damage. At max range you can finger it all before any of it reaches you. If you are close enough to the portal to hit it you are standing in the wrong place. As a sorc you will be the only person not beating the portal. You do your part and let the other 11 beat the portal. Now if there is a 2nd caster sure 1 of you should beat portal as 1 caster roming is plenty.

pfft. You don't hit the portal, your not contributing much in any decent group.

I can kill the stupid troglodytes with just glancing blows on my barb while i attack the portal long as every stays by it. Sorc standing away, agro goes away and they dont get hit.

Fact is leaving the portal group and killing anything except whats at the current portal is entirely optional and generally unnessasary in a good with decent dps. It's not possible to fail the raid if you kill portals in under 1 minuit and keep moving, as it takes a full 2 minuits after a keeper spawns (which takes about 1 minuit itself) before that happens, and at most 1 will spawn ignoring all but 1 portal at a time.

Yea sorcs kill the mobs the fastest - and thats good to help the group focus on portals in most cases, but you can kill all 3 trogs while running at the portal before anyone reachs it, and then contribute to the DPS.

My 8 starting str sorc does lots of dmg to the portals, with a weapon that cost me all of 15kplat, insurrection.

[SimVerg]

Is this serious or are you trolling?

Casters can do quite a bit of damage with spells like polar ray, ball lightning and cone of cold. Certainly it is important to debuff first, as it lowers incoming damage and decreases his chance to make a save. I would also suggest casting any fog spells you have on the pit fiend or where you know he will be to further reduce the damage the group takes and allow your clerics some time and spell points for offensive casting as well.

If you have a bard, let him spend his spell points on haste and rage. If you do not, but you have more than one caster, decide between you which will be doing buffs so that you do not waste points casting over eachother.

Haven't you heard? Shade does 800+ dps on Harry.

Also, exhaust and fatigue show as stacking but do not actually do so. Only cast one.

In general, what is worth doing is dependent on your gear/build and the group. If the group can kill him fast, it is absolutely worth nuking in 4&5. The longer it takes, the less meaningful your damage is.

[Tanka]

What *I* do.

P1: FoD, PK, repeat. Haste/Rage as needed.
P2: Heightened Web in south-central, haste, rage. FW/Acid Fog the wall, move off to crystal once they're prepped, throw FWs until one crits, blow up crystal.
P3: Solve puzzle, run around Knocking doors that need Knocked, run water.
P4: Heightened Web in SW. If no Bard, Haste/Rage. Acid Fog/CK (for concealment) Harry, throw Ray of Enfeeblement. FoD/PK gnolls (all melee should be on Harry) when they come.
P5: Help buff party with Fire, Blur, Haste (final two only if no Bard). Acid Fog on party to slow down Lts. Get back SP asap. Acid Fog/CK Harry, Ray of Enfeeblement Harry. Polar Ray/CoC (each crit for 500+) Harry until ~60% SP left, regain SP, go back to spell DPS, stop to re-debuff Harry and rebuff party (Haste/Rage).

Throw DDoor at end if anyone wants to save completion for another time.

[Kintro]

enervate works well for the orthons if you are having a hard time landing the FoD.

If you do a good job you shouldn't see any Orthons.

Generally try to stay on the mirror of the portal the group is hitting with the occasional trip to the odd spawns in the center and you'll be able to keep trogs dead and prevent orthons/devils/keepers spawning.

[Noctus]

OK, just capped my first toon, a sorc. Now I'm Shroud ready and want to get some info from those who know as to what is expected of a sorc in a Shroud group. This way I have some idea what I'm doing first couple of times in.

1st part:
you need to conserve your mana, so no buffing for anybody.
Then you need to kill the first few portals ASAP with maximised, empowered, quickened MMs.
Once your mana is spend you need to gather up some random mobs and bring them to the portalbeater party, so they dont get too bored whacking the unmoving thing.


2nd part:
Kill as many trashmobs yourself, as soon as you encounter them. Save your buddys in south central the hassle.
Once the leutanants are activated you need to KILL THEM ALL, drop down some firewalls just in their path, as well as some Disco Balls, so the party looks good while fighting. If you are being chased by some lieutenant run and jump all over the place. because you know, if you stand and Shieldblock the whole raid will fail. In the 3 secs it takes to raise you again.


3rd part:
Thats really easy. The crystals are your enemy. destroy them without hesitation. And do it fast, so to save the others time. You have the ranged DPS through spells, so use it.


4th part:
Give everybody Displacement, perhaps drop a haste, but no hussle.
When the big red meany shows up, nuke free. Give him all your best maximised, empowered, quickened MMs, full broadside. Harry has no resistance and no save agaisnt them. there´s no spell better than this. People who ask you to debuff him with Ray of Enfeeblement or Ray of Exhaustion just want you to waste your mana, so you dont out-DPS them.
Once the Gnoll guys show up feel free to bash in their skulls with your scepters. They are so weak, even you can do it. So dont waste your mana on them.


5th part:
The bad leuitenants are free again. they are baddies. So fire free. Every target is a good target.
Dont participate in torture. Some groups like to annoy and torture the last leutenant by playing a mean game with him. Dont let them drag them down to their niveau. A mercykilling asap is appropriate.
Once Harry comes down nuke him aspa like in part 4. Even drop the fighters a Haste, so they dont feel useless. And dont forget the all-Displacement buff for all. People who speak against it are clearly dumb, Displacement is -50 damage, always, especially against Delayyed Blast Fireballs he likes to throw around; dooh.


All the Power Shards you find are yours. They fetch some nice gold at the barkeeper.



Happy Shroud Raiding!

[Hadrian]

Also, exhaust and fatigue show as stacking but do not actually do so. Only cast one.

Was this directed at me? I don't know where I said something about casting both.

I just use the level 7 waves verson.

[maddmatt70]

When you eventually get the gear (glaciation set from VOD) polar ray does alot of damage to the fiend. At that point change your approach on the pit fiend to casting acid fog (for debuff) and then damaging the pit fiend with polar ray. You want to save mana though for the gnolls so take it easy on the dps of the pit fiend until you get a better handle of the quest and can better determine how many rounds/how long he lasts.

To Axer I recommend getting that glaciation set. The faster the pit fiend is killed the more resources it saves for the cleric. Casters can do excellent dps on the fiend. I have had several runs with 3 casters where we took out the pit fiend in one round on part 4.

[Shade]

To Axer I recommend getting that glaciation set. The faster the pit fiend is killed the more resources it saves for the cleric. Casters can do excellent dps on the fiend. I have had several runs with 3 casters where we took out the pit fiend in one round on part 4.

Yea.. We did that years ago too man. Remember my standard group was like 4 clerics, 2-3 casters and we still did a single round pit fiend fairly often. It certainly wasn't the casters tho as there was no glaciation 8 at that time. The only real dps was coming from our 3-6 barbs/fighters and 1 ranger.

If you do phase 4, in 1 round.. Cleric resources are never a concern.
If you fully debuff in phase 5 and have good meleee, again cleric resources are never a concern.. The other night I did one, we only had 2 clerics but the pit fiend got fully debuffed and we had serious dps.. So pit fiend died with both clerics still over half mana.

I agree casters attack the pit fiend when you get a chance, I just don't believe it makes any big difference at the moment, 10 seconds faster perhaps, thats good.. But not a big deal.

Seems like a ton of gear needed for that polar ray thing too. Im working on it on my sorc sure.. But not really concerned about it. Mod9 will likely offer an easier way to get it anyways.

[Shade]

Haven't you heard? Shade does 800+ dps on Harry.

Also, exhaust and fatigue show as stacking but do not actually do so. Only cast one.

In general, what is worth doing is dependent on your gear/build and the group. If the group can kill him fast, it is absolutely worth nuking in 4&5. The longer it takes, the less meaningful your damage is.

Yea the fatigue and exhaust don't stack on players.. But on monsters? Thats hard to say, monsters don't behave the same way as players.

If you cast fatigue twice on a player, they will become exhausted, and the fatigue disapears.. Being this doesn't work on monsters, theres a chance they may stack.

Also Barbarian fatigue and regular fatigue do stack.. Altho they should not. Just another quirk of DDO that shows this combo may stack on monsters.

And my testing PvP shows every debuff possible stacks, except fatigue/exhaust.

[Desteria]

Part 1:

carry a pair of GCB weapons, move oen portal adead of the main group Fod/PK the trogs then beat on the portal, when main group catches up refresh haste/rage if they are about to drop IF there is no bard to cover it, and move on to the next portal clearign the trogs and beatign on it with your GCB, when bard song gets low make sure to be close to the bard fro re-sing, even an 8str sorc with GCB, adn bard song does ok damage to the portals.

Part 2:
KILL, WEB, prep for crystal.

Part 3: solve puzzles/ knock doors if you have knock, run waters

PArt 4: KILL KILL BURN BURN, reserve mana for later rounds if it;s not gona be a one rounder. RoE on harry is good. FoD/PK Gnolls.

Part 5: Pull oen lutenant away and solo it, Earht or orc or fire work well, NUKE harrys BUT wuth polar rays, use north pools to refill once you have dumped your SP if hes still alive.RoE on harry is good

Through out keep the melles hasted/raged, and in a PUG the odd displacmetn or blur never hurts on weaker mellle.

90% of the buffes are over kill, bard song and hast is all thats needed for 95% of it.

[hannika]

pfft. You don't hit the portal, your not contributing much in any decent group.

i disagree. completly. i agree with fluffy. i *hate* seeing two sorcs in a party casting acid fog and beating on the portals while orthons and portal keepers spawn everywhere. imo it's the caster's job to ROAM which means going ahead of the party and wiping out all the trogs at the empty portals. a good caster with a decent sp pool who does this means you never see an orthon, you never have to worry about a portal keeper. this is the smoothest way for part 1 to go. if your tanks can't take the portals down quickly without your 8 base str sorc beating on the portals as well then you'll have bigger problems when you get to part 4.