Q about the Abbot and concentration checks

[phalaeo]

So a lot of the Abbot runs I've been in people have told us to hit him hard to break his concentration. The theory seems to be that if he's kept busy with enough stuff, he won't be able to make the concentration check for an inferno.

That makes sense to me, whether it's true or not.... which leads me to this question-

I've pounded undead in every undead-y instance the game has to offer and I've never seen any other undead not able to get a spell off because of being DPSed and casted upon mercilessly. Most notably, I'm thinking of Eternal Wizards and their firewalls. I've done runs to E-Wiz King with a full group of kitted 20s who kill these guys in two swings and they still manage to get a FW off... same with TRs who may not have the STR, but have their past life triple pos mauls and warhammers.

It's not a big deal to get past a measly Eternal Wiz on a 20, so this isn't a complaint, just an observation that pesters me.

[k1ngp1n]

Mobs don't make concentration checks.

[Dylos_Moon]

Mobs don't make concentration checks.

QFT

If you were actually trying to break the Abbot's concentration, you would keep hitting him when he started casting Inferno, and good luck with that.

[phalaeo]

Mobs don't make concentration checks.

Not calling you out, but proof (or explanation)?

I'm just saying- I have noticed less to no Infernos in high DPS Abbot groups, Norm runs through Elite. Whether that's just our timing on entering, I can't tell you- just an observation.

OTOH.....

It makes sense what you're saying, though. I've ran Shrouds with extremely high DPS groups and Harry manages to get those spells off just fine.

[phalaeo]

QFT

If you were actually trying to break the Abbot's concentration, you would keep hitting him when he started casting Inferno, and good luck with that.

For real?

Ok, two people coming in and saying the same thing... guess I'll have to de-bunk when told that his conc. can be broken....

[Samadhi]

Mobs don't make concentration checks.

Yep.

Make it 3 OP

[Gulnar13]

There was a rumor that mobs have concentration. This rumor was debuked by mobs casting under a barrage of polar rays, lightning strikes, and eSoS crits.

[phalaeo]

Well, right on- thanks for clearing that up, guys- this many responses is good enough for me.

[sephiroth1084]

For real?

Ok, two people coming in and saying the same thing... guess I'll have to de-bunk when told that his conc. can be broken....

If 1,500 point DBFs don't break his concentration, what will?

[Angelus_dead]

It's not Concentration, but some monsters can have their spells interrupted by taking more than a certain percentage of their health as damage. Even if the Black Abbot wasn't arbitrarily immune to that, his tens of thousands of hitpoints would mean that no single player attack can reach that threshold.

As to why you don't get Inferno on normal, it's usually because his total hp is lower so he gets killed before he has time to cast as much stuff.

[sephiroth1084]

I've had elite runs where we never see an Inferno, and I've had normal runs where we wiped because the Abbot flamed us 3 times in a row basically. His HP is definitely a limiting factor though--if your group can kill him quickly, he just has less time to do stuff.

[sirgog]

It's not Concentration, but some monsters can have their spells interrupted by taking more than a certain percentage of their health as damage. Even if the Black Abbot wasn't arbitrarily immune to that, his tens of thousands of hitpoints would mean that no single player attack can reach that threshold.

As to why you don't get Inferno on normal, it's usually because his total hp is lower so he gets killed before he has time to cast as much stuff.

Vanshilar's testing indicates that the Abbot has 50000 hp (give or take a couple hundred) on all three difficulties, unless this has changed over the past few updates.

[sephiroth1084]

Vanshilar's testing indicates that the Abbot has 50000 hp (give or take a couple hundred) on all three difficulties, unless this has changed over the past few updates.

Stopping posting to the forums and get back on the Str lever on the left side, **** it!

[Junts]

I've had elite runs where we never see an Inferno, and I've had normal runs where we wiped because the Abbot flamed us 3 times in a row basically. His HP is definitely a limiting factor though--if your group can kill him quickly, he just has less time to do stuff.

The abbot casts a special attack every 15 seconds. He can never do the same attack twice in a row.

The addition of mordenkainen's disjunction actually made him easier, because it reduced the likelihood of him doing an inferno from 50% every other attack to 33%.

Because the inferno lasts so long, the abbot will do the special attack that follows it the second the flame animation disappears. This is why its important to jump back early - if someone is encased while still on the platform the second the flames vanish, they're dead - if everyone is there, they're all dead.

Since the flames don't apply the Curse of the Inferno after the first 6s or so, you should make one pad, then jump back before it expires and return to dpsing the abbot. The inferno animation will continue, but do nothing. Remember that the inferno damage is not dealt by the flames, but by the Curse of the Inferno debuff, which is applied continuously for 6s after the inferno begins to anyone on the platform. It will continue indefinitely after the flames have vanished until you either die or remove the debuff with a remove curse pot. Using rem curse pot-heal-rem curse-heal will heal you through an inferno while only taking 2 ticks of spell point damage. If your timing is really good (or you have multiple ways to do remove curse on separate cooldowns) you could do it with only one tick of inferno damage.

Since the abbot is so pathetically easy to kill, its very likely you will kil lhim before he's done more than 4-5 special attacks. On elite, you'll probably see a couple more special attacks due to his higher damage output and better armor class. For this reason, you're more likely to see one or more infernos, but elite runs with no inferno aren't uncommon, especially with high dps groups.


None of his special abilities is even a spell that could be interrupted by massive catastrophic damage anyway - they are scripted events that occur on that 15s timer as long as he's alive, on the platform, and has teleported away to heal himself once in the present instance. Arraetrikos' abilities are normal mob spells which can, in theory, be interacted with by things that affect mob spellcasting. However, the only one of these that works on raid bosses is the Bewildering Blow effect, which is extremely hard to gain access to and even more difficult to land. There are ways, though...

The abbot's special attacks should be compared to the reaver's gravity reversal and not to his randomly-cast disintegrate/acid rains/etc. These kind of special-event abilities do not use the normal monster AI and do not behave like normal spells. You cannot stop the reaver from reversing gravity with Bewildering Blow, but you can stop him from casting force missiles and disintegrates.


note: the inability to do the same attack twice is why encasements were cahnged to be nonpermanent: We used to intentionally stay on our ice pads after every inferno prior to the relaunch riad changes, since there was a 50/50 chance the abbot would throw an encasement at a party member at the end of the inferno and create a permanent platform. This meant you only had to properly utilize the ice wands once, and as long as you freedom'd everyone on an ice pad, you wouldn't lose any party members to this either. Its now very risky to wait, because if he encases someone who is jumping back, the midair encasement will kill everyone who cannot jump back due to its presence

[sephiroth1084]

By back to back, I meant Inferno - something else - Inferno - something else - Inferno, basically allowing, as you said, Junts, about 15 seconds to recover between Infernos. In runs that go very smoothly, that's fine since everyone gets on and off the platform relatively unscathed, but in runs where someone important dies to an Inferno (or a few people do) that can screw things up pretty easily.

[Junts]

By back to back, I meant Inferno - something else - Inferno - something else - Inferno, basically allowing, as you said, Junts, about 15 seconds to recover between Infernos. In runs that go very smoothly, that's fine since everyone gets on and off the platform relatively unscathed, but in runs where someone important dies to an Inferno (or a few people do) that can screw things up pretty easily.

You have a 33% chance of that happening after every inferno, which means you very have chain infernos become uncommon (eg there's only around an 11% chance of inferno x inferno x inferno, so you'll only see it once or twice on average every 20 completions). Mord's dj has actually made the raid -drastically- easier, moreso than anything else that was changed about it. The odds in the prior attack chcain were 25% to see inferno x inferno x inferno, and still higher to get 4 in a row (12.5%) than the present chance of 3 in a row.

[AyumiAmakusa]

If 1,500 point DBFs don't break his concentration, what will?

Bacon.

http://forums.ddo.com/showthread.php...ighlight=bacon

[sephiroth1084]

You have a 33% chance of that happening after every inferno, which means you very have chain infernos become uncommon (eg there's only around an 11% chance of inferno x inferno x inferno, so you'll only see it once or twice on average every 20 completions). Mord's dj has actually made the raid -drastically- easier, moreso than anything else that was changed about it. The odds in the prior attack chcain were 25% to see inferno x inferno x inferno, and still higher to get 4 in a row (12.5%) than the present chance of 3 in a row.

I can't tell if you're quoting me and replying to me directly, or posting figures for others to see.

But yeah, it's rare, and sucks when you roll 3 1s in a row.

[sirgog]

Stopping posting to the forums and get back on the Str lever on the left side, **** it!

and that was a crazy, crazy eVON6...

[sephiroth1084]

and that was a crazy, crazy eVON6...

Yeah, way to pull out base 1! How many pots did you end up using?

Oh, and I suppose I'll count that epic effort in VoN 6 as wiping the annoyance of waiting for yo' ass to run back to the Str lever after calling for you for 10 minutes.