Shroud Tactics (Part 2)

[Westerner]

Running shroud again after a 3 year absence.

Most PUGs I've run with lately had enough muscle to power through Parts 1, 4, and 5. The fails happened on Part 2. No clear instructions, kill lieutenants randomly, they keep respawning, people get upset and yell "NOOBs", and everyone drops group.

The trickiest part seems to be managing who has lieutenant aggro, so you can pull them apart in a controlled fashion.

Here's my first thoughts on a basic plan for Part 2, not necessarily the fastest, but something simple that anyone who listens can follow.
1) Set up in a corner, kill all trash
2) Assign someone to pull the 4 lieutenants to the party.
3) Assign people to aggro specific lieutenants and pull them away from the party, but still in sight of healers
4) Prep - take each lieutenant down to 10-20% health
5) Kill each lieutenant in order, slowest first, saving fast ones (e.g. cat, elemental) for last.
6) Pop the crystel. I actually don't know how this is done, but the arcanes all seem to know, and I haven't seen any problems with this step.

Would this plan work?

[EKKM]

That is my guilds normal tactic, a little slower than beating them all as they come but it requires less restarts (esp if we are pugging a few spots).

[Cam_Neely]

6) Pop the crystel. I actually don't know how this is done, but the arcanes all seem to know, and I haven't seen any problems with this step.

FYI the arcanes typically drop a max/extended firewall on the crystal as you start killing the bosses the second the last boss is dead, the crystal becomes 'active' and takes dmg. 2 ticks of a decent spec firewaller will kill it.

Your way does work, but its very hard for one person to get agro of all four. If you have 12 people that pay attention, they will realize quickly who has agro, if after the split, there are three together, it takes one person with half a brain to realize that they need to take their agroed mob away from the pack. It only saves about 2 min, but should not result in a failure if the group is competent and talking.

PS the second link in your sig is dead

[ArkoHighStar]

most groups I run with go south central kill all mob spawns there or as we go there, and then just drag all bosses to south central beat them down and then separate to kill. Keeping them together till you are ready actually prevents the early kill of one boss which usually creates your issues

[Westerner]

On my failed runs, everyone attacked the bosses but they weren't pulled apart. I suspect some people didn't understand how to get aggro and how to use it to separate the mobs. Maybe saying something like, "the boss will follow whoever attacked him the most. Walk away from the party a short distance, and say which boss is following you." Or is there a better instruction to give on how to untangle who has aggro once a general melee has begun?

PS the second link in your sig is dead

Thanks - fixed

[Hayday]

Here's how our guild usually runs it. It seems to be the standard method on Thelanis from what I've seen, though I usually run with guild so I can't say for sure.

1. Pull all the trash to the SW corner
2. assign someone to pick up the elemental (usually a warforged caster, but anyone who can take care of themselves will be fine), and drag it to the SE corner
3. pull middle
4. Immediately kill named Devil or Orthon
5. Kill troglodyte/kobold (the jumpy little guys can take a while to kill sometimes, so get them out of the way early.)
6. kill orc/gnoll/troll
7. kill named bezekira (if spawned)
7. Tell the caster to prep the crystal (cast a firewall on it)
8. DPS rushes SE corner and finish off the elemental

Usually pull cat just north of the SW corner, and take gnoll/orc/troll to the barrier.
No prepping. The DPS ceiling has risen enough over the years that it's no longer necessary (unless your party's DPS sucks, of course.).

[Xorm]

Here is how I run the pt 2 of the shroud, esp. when I'm running 5-10 in a row...

1. Ask for a volunteer at the end of part one to do the elemental.. does not matter which one we get, either they can do it or they can't. I usually either get 4 people arguing over who is going to do it, or everyone is quiet, and I will go .. no one? then someone will go I guess I will do it.

2. we will clear most of the board, however since i haven't taken time to assign specific tasks to certain people, there is a 10% chance that we will have some trash mobs to fight with the bosses, however the other 90% of the time, i run to the center everything is dead, and grab the mini bosses, and run them to the southwest.

3. Mostly everyone will separate and divide them up with minimum effort and things will go ok, except for the guy(girl) that said I guess. They will have trouble getting the aggro and we will have all four bosses in the middle, then everyone will try to tell everyone else what we should have already done, and I start to get testy. Then there is the 10% chance that the guy that's not on voice will start just doing whatever he wants and kills the cat first, then we all try to beat down the other 3 before the cat gets back. This has an end result in we do it, and everyone cheers and congratulates each other on being uber, or we fail and have to do it all over again, sometimes 3 times depending on how stubborn the person is that is not on voice and cannot hear me yelling at them for being a stubborn person. (once actually had someone that I had squelched for being annoying that was actually telling my raid party to do the exact opposite of the directions i had been given out all along. <good times>)

4. Crystal - This does not always go as planned. For instance when there are two casters, and one of them is not paying attention when the directions were being given out, and is happily helping everyone take out the boss's. So that when we ask is the crystal lit? they go uh .. oops.. rinse repeat .. <again good times> (actually had once that the caster had no clue what they were supposed to do and was wandering around looking for trash mobs to kill.

I love pugging the shroud, its fun, you never know whats going to happen. People actually complain sometimes that I rush (read:Z.E.R.G.) to much, but i do give out instructions to people, and expect that they follow them, or just ask me what I mean. Most of the time I am happy to answer the questions, but sometimes, just sometimes, I am cranky, and you get sarcasm. I assure you that when I am cranky and sarcastic that its meant to come out humorous, unless you are that annoying stubborn person.