Attempting a 6-person, 0 resource Elite Shroud this Sunday - sign up here!

[sirgog]

Due to low interest, this has been postponed. It's still a pet project I want to try sometime.


I'm planning to try a silly little achievement run of the Shroud. I'm looking for five other quite specific toons to fill it out, and would like to run it late night Sunday Australian time (Sunday morning in the US). Post here if you are interested.


The goal - a 6 person Elite Shroud completion run that uses absolutely no resources. No mana pots, no haste potions, no Heal scrolls, nothing (except spell components). I'm pretty sure it can be done.


Looking for the following:

3 melee-specced healers. Must have Quicken, Empower Healing and Mass Heal. Each must be able to soloheal two passes - being able to soloheal three is a big plus and may be required if there's a death in part 4. Torc (and to a lesser extent Conc-Opp) are a big plus, as are Madstone Boots for the passes when you are not on healing duty. Mysterious Bauble is very important, Epic Spellstoring Ring is even better.
2 high DPS melees. Prefer extremely survivable builds.
1 warchanter bard with solid personal DPS. Should have Inspired Attack 3, might need to be multiclassed to have enough HP.



Party members:
Position 1: Melee-capable healer - Numot~Khyber (Sirgog)
Position 2: Melee-capable healer -
Position 3: Melee-capable healer -
Position 4: Survivable DPS-oriented melee -
Position 5: Survivable DPS-oriented melee -
Position 6: Survivable Warchanter bard -

If you want in, post in the thread below.



Requirements:

All six party members will be meleeing Arraetrikos in parts 4 and 5 (possibly not all at the same time) - as such, all six must meet the following requirements. Remember - Yugoloth potions are not permitted.

* Must have enough HP to be survivable in melee with Arraetrikos; in particular, must be able to survive an 'unlucky' 6.5 seconds of Harry's aggro without receiving any healing. (550-600 hp is enough; less with Firestorm Greaves; less again if you have both Improved Evasion and a stellar AC).
* Must be able to meaningfully contribute to beating on Elite Harry (his AC is 51, even bardbuffed this isn't easy for some builds to hit with Power Attack on). Good weapons are required - nothing weaker than a +5 Holy Silver weapon will be acceptable.
* Must be able to survive Harry's aggro while receiving no healing other than a Mass Heal every cooldown. In particular, this means Warforged need massive healing amp.
* Not mandatory, but having clickies of critical spells - in particular Haste, Fire Shield - Cold and Rage are highly recommended.
* Someone with the ability to record video of the raid would be great. My computer isn't capable of doing that without adversely affecting framerate, and I don't have software for it either.



Strategy:

Here's my proposed strategy. Expecting to require five to seven passes in part 4, although four might be possible.

Part 1
Trivial and boring.

Part 2
One of the healers that owns a Cloak of Ice (or that has Evasion) solos the elemental in SE (this will take quite some time). The two melees, the bard and one of the healers deal with the other three in NE, the final healer smashes the crystal.

Part 3
Trivial

Part 4
Healers alternate healing passes. No healing spells other than Mass Heal are used (it's used every cooldown, and only one healer is casting it each pass). Do not fight through blades, but instead coordinate a retreat (all leaving in the same direction at the same time). Those healing remain close to the melee group (possibly in it) so they receive the Mass Heals as well.
People with Cloaks of Ice use them on the early passes (as early deaths are more likely to cause a failure than late ones).
Mass Heal every cooldown heals for enough to keep people alive and at full health after it resolves. Doing this requires about 800 SP per pass, which puts a limit on the number of passes possible.
Gnolls are killed in melee, and killing them is prioritized over resuming Harry DPS.
The bard keeps Haste, Rage and (during trash waves) Displacement active.

Part 5
Lieutenants are dealt with as per regular PUG strategy, but the final one is kited rather than boxed in while all members buff and recover SP.
During the Harry battle, party members stay stacked on top of each other (all using their extreme HP to survive Harry's full aggro) and healing is managed as in part 4. Once a healer runs out of mana, another takes over, and the OOM one disengages and run to a pool and recharges as much as they can. 10-11 SP per second is required to keep the group alive, so we should have a good ten minutes to knock Harry out.

[Eurytos]

Even if you do alternate healing and pool regen, you're going to run out of mana well before Arraetrikos goes down. 2 DPS characters is probably not enough and 3 "melee capable" (aka gimp dps) healers is too much. 1 good healer with either a spell song or light monk buff (or both) who knows how to heal while running on a corner of a pool is all you need. Fill the rest with DPS and you're set.... unless your DPS takes too long and the pool disappears.

If the healer knows what they're doing, they can heal the group and maintain full mana by running in the pool at the same time.

[Angelus_dead]

epic SSR for everyone!

[sirgog]

Even if you do alternate healing and pool regen, you're going to run out of mana well before Arraetrikos goes down. 2 DPS characters is probably not enough and 3 "melee capable" (aka gimp dps) healers is too much. 1 good healer with either a spell song or light monk buff (or both) who knows how to heal while running on a corner of a pool is all you need. Fill the rest with DPS and you're set.... unless your DPS takes too long and the pool disappears.

If the healer knows what they're doing, they can heal the group and maintain full mana by running in the pool at the same time.

Firstly, the Shroud on Elite isn't about DPS much at all. It's all about survival and resource management (or resource burning). And Part 4, not Part 5 is more the concern mana wise, for the reasons you indicate.

One healer, one bard, one light monk, three 'traditional' DPS has three passes to down Harry in part 4 before the group is OOM, maybe 4 passes (possibly five if there's a FvS with Quicken, Empower Healing, Mass Heal and an Epic Spellstoring Ring on Khyber), and has perhaps 4.5 times the DPS of one top-notch melee (assuming the bard is able to melee). My group composition has closer to 4 times the DPS of one top-notch melee, but can last almost three times as long.

As for 'gimp' DPS on melee-specced healers - they should roughly match the DPS that Barbs used to do when the cap was 16, except when they need to spend time casting spells. That DPS is sufficient to win, if not to set any speed records.


Anyway, we'll see if this fills.

epic SSR for everyone!

I wish. I think you could cut down to five, maybe even four, if everyone had that.

[Eurytos]

Quicken empower mass heal also isn't the only good spell to use either. 1 or 2 Rounds can be spent using emp maximize mass cure moderate (no quicken) along with Noxious Embers (free maximize.)

[sirgog]

Quicken empower mass heal also isn't the only good spell to use either. 1 or 2 Rounds can be spent using emp maximize mass cure moderate (no quicken) along with Noxious Embers (free maximize.)

I like that approach, hadn't thought of it.

Anyway, there seems to be little interest in doing this this week - might try again later.