The PUG Epic VON 6

[BrianTheHun]

We had a really wild one once a couple of weeks ago -- she turned about 45 degrees towards the flenser side during combat. Then everything stayed the same, fire breath, all of it -- except she was pointing the wrong way. We still took damage as normal, and even the people behind the right hand rock still got hit with her wing buffett. There was a lot of excitement in vent, but we just killed her anyway. Wish I had taken a screen shot.

Ink

We have a monk in our guild who actually turned Velah around 180 degrees a couple of weeks ago. Her tail thrashes around and causes constant damage, but we didn't have to deal with the breath weapon at all.

[Quikster]

We had a really wild one once a couple of weeks ago -- she turned about 45 degrees towards the flenser side during combat. Then everything stayed the same, fire breath, all of it -- except she was pointing the wrong way. We still took damage as normal, and even the people behind the right hand rock still got hit with her wing buffett. There was a lot of excitement in vent, but we just killed her anyway. Wish I had taken a screen shot.

Ink

Yeah i think its an unbalancing strike thing.

[maddmatt70]

I tend to prefer only 2 healers and a bard/wf caster who does spot healing on one of the bases. The more dps you have on the dragon the less resources generally, although sometimes the bases can be messy so you do not pick up ground in the resources. Also healers tend to be hard to find and I hate waiting for a healer to join. An evasion melee does not take much damage in fire and electric so its best if the evasion melee get aggro if the mephits break the fascinate or ottos dance. One poster is incorrect in his assessment of evasion saves and damage in regards to this. Killing the mephits I am not a fan of especially with a more experienced group - better to fascinate and then move on you can destroy the pillars by about the time the first mephits/elementals break.

Edit: we also use 12/8/4.

[Shade]

One question. You say 30 seconds on the fire breath from when she is engaged. Is this everytime she is engaged, or just the first. And if you need to stay in long enough so she actually does it, when do you call for run and hide? 25 seconds?

Every time. Starts the moment someone moves into melee range for the first charge (it's perfectly safe to wait inside the barrier for about 20 seconds before charging, she cometfalls and barrier comes up at 25-30 if no one engaged..

Then it stops when she does a breath.. Starts again when someone moves back into melee range, or imediately if someone stayed in and survived.

Due to this I like to always be the first one in when I main tank. Often Ill purposely run right into the 2nd breath hit on my better equipped melee to get in there sooner.

If someone melee'ing dies, or people move in and out, the exact timing can get messed up so for it to work the tank needs to get in first, stay in place and and stay alive.

Re: Caster solo'ing trash. I find this to be a good idea since casters deal double damage to trash, but not to velah (maxxed polar ray crits are 3400 from a sorc on the trash, so ~3 cast destroys 1). But it is tough to pull off, and generally can't be done without mana pots except in the most powerful top-dps groups, also requires solid self healing, displacement and cloudkill setup to tank them on a caster.
Generally on my caster I'll assign 1 melee (usually ranger or paladin since they often specialize in evil outsiders) to handle them for the first 50%.. If Velahs going down fast enough, ill check my SP and take over if I have enough to kill 1-2 more waves of trash, usually I do.

[Guildmaster_Kadish]

It is almost certainly early retreating that causes her to not do her breath. I've never had a "fake" when people stayed in, or when people got out late. It only ever seems to happen when everyone runs out a bit too quickly.

Also, with regard to the 2 vs 3 healers discussion, I find that 3 healers is almost always smooth, whereas 2 healers is almost always dicey on the resources. Going from 6 to 7 melees is only a 16.67% increase in DPS, whereas it means a 50% reduction in available resources. It can certainly work, but I think that, at least at this point, 3 is probably ideal, especially so for a PUG.

[Osharan_Tregarth]

Yeah that's what we look for, but often times its so laggy she simply sits there, hence the timming question. I'm sure weLve been in on her for more than 30 seconds when she gets like this. Just curious about others experience.

We had a fun lag moment last week. Everyone was beating on her, when she was had just a sliver of health left. Breath was called, everyone runs behind the rock... And she dies from the last person still hitting her.

So everyone runs back out from behind the rock, into the stealth lag breath attack.


Still had a couple of people alive to raise everyone else....

[ryingar]

Great guide, thanks for the info. Nicely put together, nicely organized. Wish that every guide was more like this. +1

[Quikster]

Every time. Starts the moment someone moves into melee range for the first charge (it's perfectly safe to wait inside the barrier for about 20 seconds before charging, she cometfalls and barrier comes up at 25-30 if no one engaged..

Then it stops when she does a breath.. Starts again when someone moves back into melee range, or imediately if someone stayed in and survived.

Due to this I like to always be the first one in when I main tank. Often Ill purposely run right into the 2nd breath hit on my better equipped melee to get in there sooner.

If someone melee'ing dies, or people move in and out, the exact timing can get messed up so for it to work the tank needs to get in first, stay in place and and stay alive.

Re: Caster solo'ing trash. I find this to be a good idea since casters deal double damage to trash, but not to velah (maxxed polar ray crits are 3400 from a sorc on the trash, so ~3 cast destroys 1). But it is tough to pull off, and generally can't be done without mana pots except in the most powerful top-dps groups, also requires solid self healing, displacement and cloudkill setup to tank them on a caster.
Generally on my caster I'll assign 1 melee (usually ranger or paladin since they often specialize in evil outsiders) to handle them for the first 50%.. If Velahs going down fast enough, ill check my SP and take over if I have enough to kill 1-2 more waves of trash, usually I do.

So at ~25 seconds after engagement, pull out, then back in right after the second sweep clears your position, ~25 seconds repeat?

Im not questioning your info so much as trying to understand exact timing here. Usually its way to laggy for anyone to see the breath precursors for the first few times in most of our runs.

[Quikster]

We had a fun lag moment last week. Everyone was beating on her, when she was had just a sliver of health left. Breath was called, everyone runs behind the rock... And she dies from the last person still hitting her.

So everyone runs back out from behind the rock, into the stealth lag breath attack.


Still had a couple of people alive to raise everyone else....

Heh. Had similar thing happen in ToD norm last night. Party kills Devil boss in pt 1 and then orthon. I was on my cleric. Once orthon dies, I get DM text so I run towards the shrine (right past the kill group). As I approach and pass the kill group Orthon reapears and peeps are still fighting. It was like I ran back through time lol.

Also in a shroud p4 the other day on a melee, I get both the "as the blades close in" text, as well as the "you pwnd him" text lol. Have had the shroud thing happen b4 but not the tod thing. Weird laggy things going on the past few weeks, at least on my server.

[DasLurch]

I like to see how others have accomplished some of these. Thanks for the write up, and Good Luck on your own epic runs!

[Belwaar]

So at ~25 seconds after engagement, pull out, then back in right after the second sweep clears your position, ~25 seconds repeat?

Im not questioning your info so much as trying to understand exact timing here. Usually its way to laggy for anyone to see the breath precursors for the first few times in most of our runs.

Did it last night and the 1st run got killed by the lag breath...no one saw it coming, then DING!

Went in a second time, and actually kept track of the time. Ran out every 25 seconds or so and it worked like a charm. Usually when everyone was starting to run out you'd see her getting ready to breathe the fire. We got "faked" twice because we ran out slightly faster than we should've but we ended up completing.

I'm with Shade on the caster pretty much nuking trash. When trash spawns, I'm constantly spamming Polar-Ray and Cone of Cold as fast as I can. Takes about 4-5 spells total to take them down. I have melees (other than the 2 constant tanks) get on them so we minimize the time trash is up and avoid any mistakes/damage that might occur. When Velah has about 15% left, I'll start to unload my mana on her.

[maddmatt70]

It is almost certainly early retreating that causes her to not do her breath. I've never had a "fake" when people stayed in, or when people got out late. It only ever seems to happen when everyone runs out a bit too quickly.

Also, with regard to the 2 vs 3 healers discussion, I find that 3 healers is almost always smooth, whereas 2 healers is almost always dicey on the resources. Going from 6 to 7 melees is only a 16.67% increase in DPS, whereas it means a 50% reduction in available resources. It can certainly work, but I think that, at least at this point, 3 is probably ideal, especially so for a PUG.

With a pug its slightly different dynamics in regards to succes, but the three healers will likely use more resources overall because of the 17% decrease in dps. You really can almost get by on one healer on the dragon fight with a little spot healing and raises from somebody else all the other healers are really just providing overhealing. For a veteran non pug group I could actually see 1 healing bard, 1 cleric/fvs, wf caster, regular caster working fairly well.

[Inkblack]

Did it last night and the 1st run got killed by the lag breath...no one saw it coming, then DING!

Went in a second time, and actually kept track of the time. Ran out every 25 seconds or so and it worked like a charm. Usually when everyone was starting to run out you'd see her getting ready to breathe the fire. We got "faked" twice because we ran out slightly faster than we should've but we ended up completing.

I'm with Shade on the caster pretty much nuking trash. When trash spawns, I'm constantly spamming Polar-Ray and Cone of Cold as fast as I can. Takes about 4-5 spells total to take them down. I have melees (other than the 2 constant tanks) get on them so we minimize the time trash is up and avoid any mistakes/damage that might occur. When Velah has about 15% left, I'll start to unload my mana on her.

My inside source tells me you are debating about using the 12/8/4 method. Come to the dark side... it is your destiny!

I and another guildie tried to talk Fay into trying the (almost) everyone on adds method last night, but we didn't think of it until we were in the quest and we decided not to try to change mid-stride. Never a good idea.

We run so light on arcanes (none last run, with 1 bard) that I don't see us trying arcane add control.

Ink

[Belwaar]

My inside source tells me you are debating about using the 12/8/4 method. Come to the dark side... it is your destiny!

I and another guildie tried to talk Fay into trying the (almost) everyone on adds method last night, but we didn't think of it until we were in the quest and we decided not to try to change mid-stride. Never a good idea.

We run so light on arcanes (none last run, with 1 bard) that I don't see us trying arcane add control.

Ink

Your source would be correct, and I have actually switched to the 12-8-4. It's worked for my groups more than the 6-6 has. I think it all depends on the types of players you have in group...but I've been pugging it a lot and doing a lot of teaching, and 12-8-4 just seems a tad easier.

This is bad...but when I'm leading with my sorc, we'll only have her, but if I'm on Belwaar, I'll consider taking a 2nd caster, but it's usually because I have no faith in people The other night, we had a Wizzie say he's done it before and he could handle the ice rendors...he couldn't...we wiped...

[Inkblack]

Sorry for the necro, but I think this question belongs here:

I understand a common way to run 12/8/4 is to the fire side first? I've thought about it, and I don't understand. It seems a lot of people would be at risk of getting nuked. Obviously I don't get it, so why?

I guess it is somewhat obvious, but TA/TD has stuck with 12/8/4 Left with minimal refinements. One of the critical things we are doing to make it easier is have the first person to each island be sure to draw the mobs away. No one else is supposed to swing until the guardians are well away from the djinni. It seems to make it go much, much smoother.

Ink

[Alexander_Illusioni]

I really think it should be emphasized that the first one running to each island is there to distract the mephits/fire elements/flensers NOT to go in to attack the Dijinn. When ever something goes wrong on the bases, it usually seems like it is a melee taking to much damge, or the caster getting killed (who is suppose to be crowd controlling). By having one person just get aggro and then RUN around, a lot of damage mitigation will be done, and it allows the monsters to be crowd controlled more safely.

Great post Ink.

[Belwaar]

Sorry for the necro, but I think this question belongs here:

I understand a common way to run 12/8/4 is to the fire side first? I've thought about it, and I don't understand. It seems a lot of people would be at risk of getting nuked. Obviously I don't get it, so why?

I guess it is somewhat obvious, but TA/TD has stuck with 12/8/4 Left with minimal refinements. One of the critical things we are doing to make it easier is have the first person to each island be sure to draw the mobs away. No one else is supposed to swing until the guardians are well away from the djinni. It seems to make it go much, much smoother.

Ink

I actually prefer going right, for this reason: I always considered Fire the hardest, and Ice the easiest. Leave your evasions on Fire with a healer, your bard with 2 dps and a healer on 2nd, and your last healer, a caster and 2 dps on ice. Goes very smoothly, for the most part. Also, if done right, you'll have the fire and ele mobs fascinated with ice being danced.