Tips on playing a Cleric in the Shroud - Part 1

[sirgog]

Couldn't resist reposting this from the bottom of another thread.

How to play a cleric in the Shroud raid.

1) Be the first to enter. Zone in to the instance on Elite.
2) Cast resists if people ask for them. You want them to have a false sense of security.
3) Don't cast Freedom of Movement. If someone else casts it, dispel it. This will become important in part 5.
4) Some people aren't team players, and use Vicious weapons or Barbarian frenze. Don't heal these people. They need to learn respect for your spellpoints, which are needed for more important things than healing, such as dispelling FoMs.
5) Upon reaching the third portal, turn around and activate a clicky of everyone's favorite party buff, Grease. Try to aim it and time it so that people land on the spikes, they provide powerful buffs on elite.
6) Work on achieving an extremely high Wisdom and Spell Penetration. Cast Symbol of Persuasion near portals often, (the mobs are not immune to it), as you don't want the party getting overrun. Portal Keepers are especially good to charm in this way, their fire spells are devastating to the portals and the orthons.
7) Summon an Efreeti or Hellhound. Their fire attacks are particularly useful in here.
8) Open the chest at the end of part 1. If there is a Shard of Power in it, leave it in the chest and recall out. Otherwise, step into part 2, run straight to the center of the maze, aggro the four bosses, and run to the south-central area, die, and release out.

[Spoonwelder]

Now Sirgog - you went and stole my idea - a Shrouding For Clerics guide for Dummies.

You want a foolproof guide to being asked back on a Shroud run - you always, always listen to Sirgog....but if for some reason that doesn't work try this (comments welcome as I have only run it 10 times and am still learning - in a way these are notes to myself being shared on the forum):

The Shroud for Healers

In general listen to the star, if you are the star - you should stop reading this as you must know it all already. The star will guide you alot if you ask but generally you will get no input from the star as a cleric if you don't ask - you may get a mention in Part 4 and 5 in the instructions BUT don't expect any handholding unless you ask for it. Also there will usually be two healers in the raid and it will be up to you in many cases to manage your roles.

Part 1 - Beating portals

Generally you follow the crowd - have Radiant Servant Aura on and you shouldn't have to heal much if at all. But still watch the red bars - someone may get themselves in a pickle somehow. The mages will be away from the group - don't freak out. If they get hurt they will come back to the group - or you can select them and keep pinging your heal until it lands. While the group is pounding on the portal - you may as well too. It may just shave 10 seconds off the total run.

Part 2 - Kill the Crystal - what crystal I have never seen this crystal

This is actually the most chaotic part for the healers. The group will gather in the south central region dragging mobs back to the agreed partay zone. Get there quick as you can as alot of the other players will be taking damage and need your help. Get there - cure mass a few times to get all to max - throw out a few buffs is you want but don't expect to hit everyone as they will be charging around cleaning up mobs or scouting the middle etc...

There will be a callout of the red-named mobs. The only important ones to hear are Fire or Earth which will mean Fire Resists or FOM - but don't just randomly cast - ask if people need it and check if the other casters are taking care of this - manage your mana as you will need it for healing. If the leader hasn't sorted you out - between yourself and the other healer decide who is going to cover the groups as they drag the mobs east and west from south central. Your primary task will be to heal those groups but expect to have to roam back to south central to heal up the people there.

There are pools here to regenerate your SP in the SE and SW corners BUT you will only need to use these if there is an F-up on the killing of the crystal that everyone swears is in the middle and needs to be hit with a few firewalls. It's like Santa to an 8 year old - better to believe because it keeps going well for you if you do but you really would like to see it for yourself.

Part 3 - Puzzles - water running - looting.

This one is simple - do your puzzle if you can (practice sites abound and there is a great description on how to do them on the forum somewhere - search for it) otherwise stand by the door like a dork and voicechat where approximately you are and what type/size puzzle you are at.

Once you get out of the room move to the south central section of the map (don't walk over the glowing yellow runes - triggers more flying blades). When you get to the pool I usually stay there and heal people as they come and go - the flying blades will be chewing up the squishier types. If everything is going great and red bars are full - grab some water and run it back to your puzzle BUT do not put water in a puzzle that isn't solved as you will kill 2 chests and seriously PO 11 other people.. You'll be done this part faster than I could type this paragraph so you really shouldn't need to run water...if not recall now as your group is fubar'd.

Collect the 4 chests...... then just before people enter the next portal there will be a round of buffing - healers responsibility is usually Nuetralize Poison, Resist Fire and FoM (for the holds). So hold off on your shrine to buff first then shrine and hit yourself with those three as needed. Then hop in the pool to replace that 100sp or so. Get back to the Altar ASAP - most groups won't enter Part 4 until you are ready.

Part 4 - I'm just wild about Harry

This one is pretty simple and I have run this one without even moving before. Between yourself and the other healer decide who is going to be healing first and who will take over when the first is almost out of SP. The star may assign this, but be ready to take care of it yourself. Mainly you don't want to be doubling up the healing except at specific times in order to conserve SP.

Primary healer will roll out mass cures to the people beating on Harry - they will target one DPS person - make sure everyone knows who is the target is so they don't back out of the fight and get everyone else killed. Don't spam the heals though - watch the red bars and watch Harry. Use your mass cure lights on small hits - if he tossed a fireball hit your mass cure crit. I personally rarely use mass heal as it takes too long even quickened and most players don't need that much healing anyway. Watch your SP and anticipate the backup healer taking over - but you may have to tell them to take over if they don't.....get confirmation that they are taking over and be ready to take a SP pot if your backup healer is a doofus and ignores you. Better a pot than a fail. Personally I prefer to be backup healer as I can call myself in and be in control.

Backup healer target someone else initially while you are waiting and be ready to mass heal on this person if the primary healers target dies or moves away from the fight. The backup healer is also responsible for the mage(s) - keep an eye on them and toss them a cure light ( which should be more than enough) if they are down by 1/4 just in case a fireball gets through. Also - watch the SP of the primary healer - as they get below 25% call yourself in - ie. 'taking over healing in 5 4 3 2 1' This will leave the primary healer enough to spot heal and or raise anyone that may die.

IF either of you hear blades in - cast a couple of mass cures until it is over. This means you are getting another round of Harry. Assess your SP - consider taking a SP pot if you don't think you can both heal through another round.

Harry will come back in a few seconds - backup healer monitor the mages as they will be taking care of mobs and the guys healing Harry - they may get in trouble - but not often. Other than that it is rinse and repeat the above until success/failure.

Assuming you kill Harry - but one or more people die in the process, then you will have to stay in the central room while someone hits the altar to allow the people who died to come back out in that room - they only have a few seconds to get a raise/resurrect cast so be ready to target and cast as quick as possible. People will be assigned to raise different dead people so don't expect to have to hit more than one. If you died - somehow then be ready to take that raise as soon as it is offered.

Get your chests. Hit the shrine - don't buff.

Part 5 - Your all gonna die

You're all dead - Harry ****es and moans about not being allowed to go shopping or something like that. Then you are raised (thin plot point here I think) and the fight begins anew - The star will have handed out jobs as to who takes what red-named boss where and who to not kill - you can probably ignore that but understand that you likely won't be able to heal everyone from a central spot - you will have to move to get your heals off on various groups.

One of the healers will be designated to buff while the fights are on - Resist Fire, FoM and Neutralize Poison again. The other will concentrate on the healing. Once the group has killed all but one of the red-named mobs you can hit the pools in the corners of the room to replenish SP. You will not get an unlimited amount of time to do this as everyone is antzy to complete and an extra minute or two is going to gather aggro from the group. So get what you can and then get in position to heal near but off to the side from the altar in most cases. Establish primary and secondary healer again - don't waste SP. Secondary healer can probably stay at the pools for a few minutes until the primary needs to change roles.

Primary healer - hit the pools if you run out of SP while the other healer takes over. If you've gotten to part 5 you likely shouldn't need to use a SP pot as a group good enough to take Harry down in Part 4 can usually do fine in Part 5 with only the two healers and a little time in the pools....but be ready to take a pot as 11 people will be ****ed if they failed due to you being cheap. (Note in all my runs so far I have taken one SP pot that was actually needed every other one was just in case or due to bad SP management between the healers).

If Harry teleports you over to him - run away. It won't happen often but it can.

When Harry goes down - recall/d-door asap or walk up to the blue wall if you are completing.

[Narmolanya]

Good effort but it seems a lot of players have this routine down by heart.

[Spoonwelder]

I know - but everyone has to run it for a first time once - or a second time after they fail miserably.

I tried to hightlight the need for the healers to communicate - which I often don't see in the raid unless I trigger it.

[Ganak]

they Need To Learn Respect For Your Spellpoints, Which Are Needed For More Important Things Than Healing, Such As Dispelling Foms.

Rofl!!

[Jiipster]

Why would you wait until you're OOM to start running in the pools? My FvS is constantly running in it in P5 (or, at least he is in the few runs where I cannot bully someone else into healing first), and he usually ends up with 50ish percent of his SP left afterwards.

[sirgog]

Why would you wait until you're OOM to start running in the pools? My FvS is constantly running in it in P5 (or, at least he is in the few runs where I cannot bully someone else into healing first), and he usually ends up with 50ish percent of his SP left afterwards.

On a serious note, I don't go near the pools in part 5. It interrupts line of sight occasionally for Mass Heal. Healing *solely* with Mass Heal lets your SP last about three times as long as healing with the inefficient Mass Cures.

[The-Last-Wolf]

Nice one Spoonwelder,

I had my first Shroud completion a couple of days ago (couple of wipes in 4 & 5 before then) and I swear you must have been recording it, because you pretty much described exactly what happened.

The only thing that was slightly different (possibly my bad as a first timer) was myself and the other healer didn't co-ordinate as a primary/backup but we seemed to establish a reasonable routine of one casts then the other casts which worked fine as neither of us ran low on SP. I won't suggest this is a good idea as we were running on normal with a pretty good group and I'm sure it gets a lot harder at Elite ;-)

Your guide did explain a few things that I was unsure of so thanks and +1

Regards
Wolf

[Spoonwelder]

On a serious note, I don't go near the pools in part 5. It interrupts line of sight occasionally for Mass Heal. Healing *solely* with Mass Heal lets your SP last about three times as long as healing with the inefficient Mass Cures.

I only hit the pools if I am the primary and have handed off to the secondary - just in case. The same reason - I may lose line of sight or distance for healing.

Mass Heals - my lack of experience or maybe the groups I PUG into but I notice right away that one or two guys are getting tagged hard (say just below 50%) and a mass cure light w/ empower healing and the 75% radiant servant and those guys are up to full along with everyone else. A Mass Heal would be overkill and could arrive late for those low HP characters. That's PUGs for you - and it's only in PUGs that I would ever remotely expect to chug a pot against my better judgement.

In guild runs - not so much of an issue and I can probably rely on Mass Heals but my habit is already hard to break. I just invert it and hit mass cure crit first. All but the barbs are usually full at that point.

[Spoonwelder]

Nice one Spoonwelder,

The only thing that was slightly different (possibly my bad as a first timer) was myself and the other healer didn't co-ordinate as a primary/backup but we seemed to establish a reasonable routine of one casts then the other casts which worked fine as neither of us ran low on SP. I won't suggest this is a good idea as we were running on normal with a pretty good group and I'm sure it gets a lot harder at Elite ;-)

Thanks for the rep - and that was I think the core of my message - the healers need to sort themselves out since the star will only occassionally designate your roles. I have found when that is happening I know we are wasting mana because I see upticks in health after my spell lands. Just a timing thing. I also hate not being in control of the heals without knowing the other person is on the case since everyone has different metrics as to when the fire their heals off. So communication smooths it all out.

And yeah a good group will make the healers look good - you don't have to fire off as many heals - you'll have SP left and Harry will go down well before the blades go in.

My worst experience so far was when we didn't communicate who we were keying on for heals. The monk I highlighted (evasion/saves expected some AC etc so expected them to stand tall for the whole fight) kept popping in and out of melee. I couldn't figure out why only a few people were being healed at a time until the dissection after a round one wipe (well almost - the monk was still up) it became clear when the leader ripped into the monk for yoyoing in the fight. Yeah maybe the monk could solo Harry I don't know (or care) but it pays to communicate your heal target and give the monk a chance to say no that don't work with my playstyle.