Vision of Destruction

[adm5893]

Because it has been difficult to get a guild run for this, I have been pugging it and have not had a consistent streak of luck.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated... I think in the last two failures, the clerics failed to cast enough blade barriers soon enough....

[maddmatt70]

Have all the melee other then the main tank kill the bats as well as the casters. Problem solved.

[spyderwolf]

Part 1 of 2
Part 2 of 2

Hope they help!

[moops]

A million different strategies, however, this raid is actually easier to short man, then to do with a full group of unknown pugs--and even uber guild groups fail sometimes due to miscalculations--like deciding to actually kill the orthons, and the Sally tank accidently taking Sally too far down in health and spawning the Bats while no one is prepared

I actually don't use BB to kill the bats, I throw one up, but I know that BBS on my 2 main clerics aren't that great in VOD, if Im leading a group where the bats need to be killed because I think that they can't live through mass heals or serverlag issues, I ask the rangers and casters to take care of it and just spam mass heals. I try to save at least half of my SP for the end, and only use scrolls for most healing. Also, many times I am the only CLeirc, so throwing a BB just draws aggro to me, and then I can't actually heal the group as well.

[maddmatt70]

Have all the melee other then the main tank kill the bats as well as the casters. Problem solved.

I will just bump my own post to clarify. When the bats come all the melee kill the bats. There are two waves of bats so after you kill the first wave you go back on the pit fiend and then when the second wave of bats come you kill the bats again. If the main tank dies you just avoid sulu and keep concentrating on the bats. This is the BEST STRATEGY. It is foolproof really and does not matter what personnel you have. You will not have any problems with the bats after that.

[soupertc]

the only reason people throw Blade Barriers down is to draw aggro. If your in a PUG it is wise to kill the bats....it's not that hard for people to run around and swing thier weapons for a few seconds. It also helps if the casters themselves have the ablitly to move around and not stand as statues if they are healing Warforged.

We run this on a regular basis and we PUG out the last 6 spots normally to spread the wealth or meet new people. Just look for a LFM Samulos(or any of his ALTs) has put up and click join.

[wamjratl1]

The best way is to play at a time when you and your party are the only ones online on the whole server. That way, you be able to avoid getting Sully down to about 1% and then hitting a lag spike where everyone gets the death message but is still showing full HP, you can still swing your weapon, and the bats are still flying around your dead head and then you freeze in place for 30 seconds or so... Oh, and what eveyone else said, too.

[kuro_zero]

Lag is horrendous on the approach to the quest, getting those pressure switches lit while DDO is running on a 1 FPS slide show is the suxors.

Once in the quest I have not noticed any debilitating lag spikes, compared to say Shroud Part 4 DPS lag since generally peeps are running around handling trash and orothons and not hitting one mob for 30 minutes.

[Zaal]

Just ran one last night and interestingly, part one was sort of a cluster-frack but once the party found its a groove, the rest of the quest was really a piece of cake.

I was one of two repair'r on our WF TANK and found I had mana to spare a quest's end - as did our other castor.

Al said, we had just one casualty during the last bat wave and said casualty was fortunately not our WF TANK.

Interesting take on castor'ing... I noticed the other castor having cast SHADOW WALK on himself and having a stack of scrolls myself, cast it also and essentially dicovered that, as long as I didn't take agro, I was able to repair the bot while essentially staying in a displaced state for 10 minutes - point being SHADOW WALK allowed me to save.

Of course in between tank sessions, had to drop back to casting DISPLACEMENT since casting even WEB was enough to draw agro.

COLD SHIELD was also a benefit in there that I hadn't utilized before as it, along with Fire Resist and Protection helped to negate a bunch of Fire Bat damage.

All in all, a number of points in this thread I also find to be helpful... Chattering groups tend to have more confidence and once the group gells, normally good things come out of it.

LFM are suprisingly informative... Text can help reveal if the party leader is confident.

Also, have a look at the party make up and of course look for a few castors, a few clerics, a bard, warforge Tanks (and castors to repair) etc.... I know this one sounds obvious but, joined a pug once with my Cleric not really looking at party makeup and found myself to be the main WF TANK healer! Sure, we had a sorc but he was using scrolls!

That run was a miserable failure but, refusing to give up, I found myself using 10+ Major Pots - the party leader offered to reimburse some of them but I was so ticked, I declined them... No one else in the party even offered any.

[Turial]

Have all the melee other then the main tank kill the bats as well as the casters. Problem solved.

So true.

[kuro_zero]

The problem is you're taking a lvl 7 Paladin (or have you made 8?) into a lvl 17 Raid :P

Joking aside, DPS management is key near the end. DPS need to sometimes sit back and wait for the CC and blades to be in place before the bats spawn. When I'm tanking Sally I turtle up while the Orothons are being killed, and the devils have been taken care of (I believe 48 is the kill count to reach before the kamikaze bats)

Once the CC and blades are in place and all other trash have been taken care of, webs and BBs are placed in the half or third of the room where sally is. All DPS fight through the bats, clerics spamming mass protect and mass cures, a dedicated WF healer (if going that route) keep main tank up while other one helps take out the bats (horrid wilting after a group of bats have been webbed works well).

Last run we attempted to use Symbol of Death since reports stated the bats have less than the HP cap of the spell, but the caster stated the bats were popping up Immune. If the BB do not kill them and they get stuck in a web, a SoD on top of them should kill em.

Generally we have all DPS try to take down Sally as quickly as possible, fighting through the bats. Alternatively, I've seen people break off to run bats around through BBs and Webs and once the bats have thinned get back on Sally to end it.

Also, Clerics should be using scrolls and dipping into their mana as little as possible. Good measuring tool is to have as much blue bar as Sally has health bar. A few pots for those hairy end moments don't hurt, and its nice if others can handle rez's instead of taxing the already over burdened clerics.

[Phidius]

Yeah, the variableness in PUG raid completions seems to be increasing here on Sarlona. Here's my advice.


1. Watch the LFM even if you are on timer. In time, you'll come to know the people who run it regularly, even if they aren't the leaders.

2. The smoothest runs I've been on have included a high AC main tank. If you have a WF main tank who's depending on DR, make sure you have plenty of Reconstruct scolls. For example, I always carried 200 when I was one of 2 casters. Rarely did I use more than 120, but it's better to be prepared. Unless your casters have 8,000-9,000 spell points, that is.

3. The quiet groups make me nervous. I'd rather have to ask people to stop talking than have someone who doesn't respond.

4. For some reason, people who work together like a surgical team for the 1st wave of Orthons can totally lose their freaking minds when the 2nd wave hits. Make sure the only person putting down AOE is the Orthon collector once your kill counts gets close to 47, and that everyone else knows to sheathe their weapons (in a manner of speaking) until the Orthons are gathered up.


I can't give any good advice for the bats - the runs I've been on, we've either wiped on the 2nd wave of Orthons, or completed. I can't remember the bats being a problem for a while now, and I have no idea how they are being dealt with aside from Blade Barriers.

[BlackSteel]

2. The smoothest runs I've been on have included a high AC main tank. If you have a WF main tank who's depending on DR, make sure you have plenty of Reconstruct scolls. For example, I always carried 200 when I was one of 2 casters. Rarely did I use more than 120, but it's better to be prepared. Unless your casters have 8,000-9,000 spell points, that is.

I refuse to tank on my barbarian unless theres a WF sorc that I trust. Theres absolutely no reason a sorc cant do it with mostly their SP, using scrolls for simple burst healing if/when necessary. Fleshy wizards, or people who pick up reconstruct w/o any enhancements usually end up overburdened very very fast trying to heal the main wf tank. I've had too many VoDs that had to change strats mid quest b/c the WF healer was just insufficient, whereas I've never had a problem when picking up a WF healer who was WF themselves.

Popping recon scrolls w/o scroll enhancements, or using the spell w/o a few ranks in force/repair is far less effective than having a fleshie tank with a decent will save.

Back when I was doing regular runs tho, I always ran it with a guildee sorc. And we had a little extra strat worked out where when orthons popped he would drag one over to me while tanking sulu. I'd always try to help by taking down 1 orthon while the rest of the raid took down the other 3. Sometimes in a bad group this might involve 2 orthons. And even had one raid where everyone else just seemed lost, and me and the sorc had to do 3 of the 4 orthons ourselves in the corner with sulu while rest of party got together on 1.

To the OP, if you're concerned about failures, particularly if you're the cleric. Find out whose the main tank/main healer before joining. If you dont know em, dont join the group. Or start your own group and cherry pick who joins.

[Paladin20]

Because it has been difficult to get a guild run for this, I have been pugging it and have not had a consistent streak of luck.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated... I think in the last two failures, the clerics failed to cast enough blade barriers soon enough....

From my experience, here are some typical points of difficulty or failure a PUG will be likely to encounter:

1. Not enough healing/resources.
Make sure the clerics start out using as many scrolls as possible, and save at least 60-70% of their mana bar for the 2nd wave of orthons and after. Healing can be expedited if there is one bard or caster that is dedicated to removing curse with potions on the main tank. This procedure can be further simplified if the main tank on the big guy is a Warforged. In that case, make sure the casters are either WF and have the Reconstruct spell or have plenty of scrolls. Last but not least, make sure each mana user has at least a couple of Major Mnemonic Potions handy just in case, because things might not go so smooth until you have a lot of successful completions or have it down to a science.

2. Keeping the healing priority straight.
Sometimes a cleric will stray to top somebody off or rescue somebody when the main targets (tank on Suulo and tank on Orthons) are taking heavy damage and end up having no time to recover. Even though dying sucks and nobody likes it, people have to understand that unless they are main tanking/intimidating, they are either a) dispensible b) not crucial to the survival of the party c) standing on the wrong spot and taking way too much damage. If the main tank goes down and the big guy gets loose he'll go around chasing people and cursing them which prevents them from getting healed, and that can easily be a party wipe.

3. Focus the DPS on one target.
For the most efficient way of dealing with the Orthons, it's best to have all the DPSers hit the same one (assigning a lead DPS to attacking Orthons helps), as the sooner you have one less Orthon on the floor means that there will be one less elite mob rolling an attack dice per swing = less damage to be taken.

4. Refreshing Mass Protection From Elements/Spam Mass Cure.
One thing that might be easy to overlook is that if you take contact with a Detonator Bat towards the end and live the first hit that means you took 120 less damage than you would had your Fire Prot not been on. If the party isn't going around chasing bats and there is enough CC around the floor, then the clerics/casters should stay within the vicinity of where the party is wailing on Suulomades so that Mass Protects/Cures will cover as many people as possible. Having Quicken turned on is of great value when you're in a pinch.

5. DPS is really high and mobs spawn too quickly in the end.
Sometimes a really solid DPS group will encounter Devils spawning on top of the Orthons that just dropped. People have to be watchful of the boss' health bar at around the letter 'd' or when the group has reached the 48-50 kill mark. In that situation, make sure the DPSers are vorpalling/WoP the devils down before dealing with the Orthons, which take a lot longer to kill.

6. Bats, bats, bats.
Web + Solid Fog + CK is in my book the best way to deal with bats, especially Web because you can cover the whole room with it in less than a minute. If the casters have heighten it's the perfect time to turn it on. Blade Barrier does not work as well because it takes a lot longer to cover a good area, and if the DC is not as good the bats have pretty darn good reflex saves and evasion. Also helpful is assigning one group member with a Stat Damaging ranged weapon and preferrably evasion to target the bats. Also, the proper Fire mitigation gear is also very helpful, things such as Firestorm Greaves, Cloak of Ice/Fire Shield (Cold) spell, and Shroud Exceptional Bonus items w/Resistance or Absorption.

[kuro_zero]

{snip}
[COLOR="teal"]... when the group has reached the 75-80 kill mark. ...
{snip}

75-80?! Runs I've been on we wait for 48 then DPS down for Orothons, wait for Orothons to drop (52) and DPS Sally down for bats.

[Paladin20]

75-80?! Runs I've been on we wait for 48 then DPS down for Orothons, wait for Orothons to drop (52) and DPS Sally down for bats.

You're probably right... been a while since I last checked.