A New Invasion - Battling Barnzidu

[Caelan]

I am looking for advice on a good strategy for dealing with the end guy, Barnzidu, in this quest. We've completed it, but it's just not pretty. What strategies have people found to be good, specifically when combating that soundwave thing, or whatever it is that does the massive damage to everyone and curses them at the same time. It really ****es off our healer, and given that he's my husband and it's supposed to be fun, I am looking for some advice.

Party makeup is different from time to time, but our group is a "play what you want" type. The rest of the quest is cake. Any constructive advice that will scale with difficulty would be helpful.

[mws2970]

The few times I have run this, the FvS or Cleric has soloed the end. They kite him through blade barriers, self heal and self remove curses.

[gwlech]

The few times I have run this, the FvS or Cleric has soloed the end. They kite him through blade barriers, self heal and self remove curses.

I agree, perhaps the easiest way to do this is to BB kite him.

Two things:

If you have an arcane, you can have them drop down the hole first and debuff with waves of exhaustion and curse, then ddoor out. Make sure the Divine caster is down there before the arcane takes the ddoor, as he will reset otherwise.

NOBODY else goes down there for any reason, until the fight is over. The floor traps are activated by stepping on them, and with random people stepping everywhere it makes it much harder to kite, this is especially so on elite, where the traps will pretty much one-shot a 550 hp character.

[J1NG]

The few times I have run this, the FvS or Cleric has soloed the end. They kite him through blade barriers, self heal and self remove curses.

Pretty much this.

The other options are really tough to pull off, since it needs everyone to know where they are, get together in a matter of seconds and then move as a co-ordinated unit, and whilst moving around remain attacking the boss. Removing any curses that is preventing healing and hoping the healer isn't dead.

Of the two, the first option is the easiest and most common way with dealing with the boss. Since it's entirely reliant on only the Cleric/FvS to taking care of themselves and dropping Blade Barriers to get rid of the boss. Takes a little longer than going as a group (depends on party makeup though), but many times safer and almost always assured.

J1NG

[grodon9999]

- Buff the **** out of the party while up top. Make sure everyone has curse pots. Take off your Madstone boots or anything else that you will prevent you from removing your own curses.

- The caster stays up top, his job is to grab stones and D-Door out if the **** hits the fan. Everyone else jumps down with Featherfall on, do not hit the sides while falling and land together.

- Kill the trash as fast as possible with vorpals.

- Now it's time to kill the BFD (big Fing Devil). Have a leader who has voice comms call when to rotate to the next hex. We move in a clockwise but it doesn't really matter. Stick together while fighting the BFD, the way we do it is I yell "GO" when it's time to rotate to the next hex. if somebody dies, leave them dead, it's much more inportant for the healers to keep those still alive up and fighting.

- It is imperative that the party sticks together and doesn't run off like a bunch of idiots, the hexs don't activate until somebody steps on them, if the party moves as a group you have about 10 seconds to hit the BFD before moving to the next hex. If people run around like retards it's a disaster, the hex's will all activate at once. If everone sticks together it's easy.


Kiting with BBs and an Arcane archer also works, but my way is faster and funner

[Dozen_Black_Roses]

I would agree the easiest is to have a cleric/fvs kite him through bb's alone, rest of party can wait at drop down part. If so, best position for the blade barrier's are in between the columns of the outside ring of the inner circle (not in the red area but just outside of that as that is where the end boss mostly paths as he follows you around). You should have 3 or four bb's constantly going, and will need quicken on to ensure you get them off and can heal yourself.

If you are doing the end fight as a party, you can move counterclockwise or clockwise every 15 secs or so (have to time it with the force blasts), so that you attack him for a little bit, then someone yells move and you move on to the next platform...repeat til dead. I have had ppl do it moving every 2 platforms instead of one, and also just moving back and forth between 2 platforms. Buffwise make sure you have deathward and resist sonic/electric (I might be off on one of those but pretty sure you need both), spell resist can help also. It's recommended that people have a stack of remove curse potions on their hotbar so they can take care of their own curses so the healer doesn't have failed heals and get frustrated, and waste time removing curses. Of course, if people are moving when they are told to, they will rarely get cursed. Casters can use scrolls/spell of waves of exhaustion to debuff him some, but he is really not that tough a boss, it is the force blasts in there that kill. Also when you first drop down, everyone should have ff off so you get down quickly and face the same direction when you drop to maximize time so you can kill the devils quick before main boss pops.

[Ollathir]

I am looking for advice on a good strategy for dealing with the end guy, Barnzidu, in this quest. We've completed it, but it's just not pretty. What strategies have people found to be good, specifically when combating that soundwave thing, or whatever it is that does the massive damage to everyone and curses them at the same time. It really ****es off our healer, and given that he's my husband and it's supposed to be fun, I am looking for some advice.

Party makeup is different from time to time, but our group is a "play what you want" type. The rest of the quest is cake. Any constructive advice that will scale with difficulty would be helpful.

On normal or hard, have everyone gather on one platform, beat down, vorpal devils. When end boss spawns he will come to you, (if devils arent dead by then split your melee into finishing off devils and beating on end boss).
When the platform looks like a portal is starting up on the floor, the trap is coming, one person calls out "move". Make sure the direction your moving is clear before you begin, either clockwise or counter clockwise. Move to the next platform,(but not beyond, by touching more than one platform you activate the trap). Continue beating down end boss by moving platform to platform when the portal(trap) spawns.
So long as you are only activating one platform at a time, and moving no more that a couple seconds after the trap spawns, you will miss being cursed.

[Anthios888]

The first time I did this, we tried the blade barrier method. It works, but I'm not a fan.

The adventure can be very easily handled with nearly any party that is willing to work together.

Think of the area around the center as a ring of those tiles in Mario where if you step on them, they start to fall out from underneath you. In the case of A New Invasion, you have a few seconds you can be on the tile before it begins to light up and explode -- this is where the soundwave and curse come from.

Designate a direction (clockwise or counterclockwise), and group the party up by agreeing to meet up on one person. I generally pick the warforged or the toon with the most flamboyant hair, aka me.

Everyone groups up and melees/cones/blade barriers on the boss. Waves of exhaustion is an effective way to slow him and reduce incoming damage. Generally, you can take out the devils pretty quickly, as they do not respawn.

As you see the floor start to light up, jump off onto the next tile in your circle. Since everyone is together, it's relatively easy to mass heal and rez anyone who accidentally dies to the devil's melee attacks. I mean, sometimes I have to talk about my pink hair instead of healing the wizard, you know?

Just make sure everyone understands that jumping ahead of the party will set up a landmine that explodes on arrival. If you see the one you are moving onto has already activated the glowy animation, simply direct your party to move two tiles instead of one.

My voice chat often consists of, fight, fight, fight, MOVE!

This is a strategy that engages all party members. It produces fast, smooth completions on any difficulty. No resources need used (although one time on elite I had to down like 2 because we weren't coordinated and we had some bad luck).

[grodon9999]

This is a strategy that engages all party members. It produces fast, smooth completions on any difficulty. No resources need used (although one time on elite I had to down like 2 because we weren't coordinated and we had some bad luck).

How much harder its he on Elite than hard? haven't done that one elite yet.

[gwlech]

How much harder its he on Elite than hard? haven't done that one elite yet.

Traps pretty much 1 shot everyone...800 hp barb jumps down there and dies within a couple of seconds.

[mws2970]

Awesome strategies. As I said in my initial reply, I've only run this a few times and every time, the healer soloed the boss. It was slow, but worked each time. So see, I learned something new today!

[Anthios888]

How much harder its he on Elite than hard? haven't done that one elite yet.

He used to be harder, because there are air elementals. Now that air elementals are less of a hazard, a few firewalls / blade barriers will dispach them. He has a lot of hit points on elite, so it might take a few times around the ring. It's one of those quests where getting the strategy down is the #1 thing -- if you can do hard easily, then elite is just applying the same principles to a dude with more hit points.

[grodon9999]

Traps pretty much 1 shot everyone...800 hp barb jumps down there and dies within a couple of seconds.

Thanks - is the time from "light up" to "BOOM!" noticeably shorter?

[Anthios888]

Traps pretty much 1 shot everyone...800 hp barb jumps down there and dies within a couple of seconds.

Indeed... avoidance just becomes that much more important.

[Anthios888]

Thanks - is the time from "light up" to "BOOM!" noticeably shorter?

It's the same

[gwlech]

Thanks - is the time from "light up" to "BOOM!" noticeably shorter?

Haven't really noticed that.

Another thing to mention on elite is everyone MUST STAY CALM. Most people get down in the pit and freak out, and start frantically running around or make several mistakes they otherwise wouldn't, simply because it's very stressful for most people and doesn't leave room for error.

That's why I think on elite, its good to have a divine solo it. Yes it takes longer, but if he dies, someone can jump down and get his stone for another try. If the whole group is down there and something goes wrong, its almost certainly a wipe.

[sirgog]

He used to be harder, because there are air elementals. Now that air elementals are less of a hazard, a few firewalls / blade barriers will dispach them. He has a lot of hit points on elite, so it might take a few times around the ring. It's one of those quests where getting the strategy down is the #1 thing -- if you can do hard easily, then elite is just applying the same principles to a dude with more hit points.

The increased regeneration is more significant than the increased HP.

[Anthios888]

The increased regeneration is more significant than the increased HP.

I should have mentioned that. It's also the reason why the solo blade barrier method gets increasingly worse on elite. 6 people > 1 person

[Talon_Moonshadow]

I really hate this quest for that reason. Bad quest design if the solution is to have one guy solo the end fight IMO.

They need to change this to be more party friendly. Find a way that you can step on a grid for a moment without setting it off maybe. That would help when you have scattered party members. (like after a wipe )

I'm ok with the concept. But it is difficult to get a group to coordinate well. We need some time free of those things to get organised IMO.

It can work if the group stays together and moves as a unit....which I think is what it was designed to do.

But getting the group together especially after a wipe and getting the feel for it, is....feels like impossible actually.

I really hate the fact that this quest works better with a soloer...especially with a cheezy BB soloer.

[grodon9999]

I really hate the fact that this quest works better with a soloer...especially with a cheezy BB soloer.

That's simply not true, it only works best solo'd if the other 5 guys are incompetent.