TOD ELite - Part 1 Tactics

[Phalcon]

Alright So Ive heard a lot of debates on my methods for running TOD ELITE part 1. Let me first say that this strategy I only use for Elite and the reason should be very obvious: Traps Kill on Elite. Now I realize that a lot of you guys are stuck on your old ways of doing things and sometimes don't like changes and that's totally fine. Below I will explain my tactics for Tod Elite Part 1 in details including a Map to make it easier to understand hopefully. I am not saying this is a better way, nor am I saying anything bad about how you guys do it, this is merely explaining why and how I run my raids. Here we go:

1. Everyone Zones in and meets up at the first Locked Gate. The leader designates some buffs to be passed out to include:

Fire Resistance/Lightning Resistance/Deathward/Haste

I think using displacements is a waste of time because you can just heal through any minor damage done by trash and if you have a caster they should be webbing the orthons anyway.

2. Everyone makes their way into the zone that has the Judge and Jailer. At this point I designate someone to kite/Tank the Jailer (Green Star on Map) with someone able to heal them (Red Star on Map). This is known as "Team 2". I personally like putting the bard as the team 2 healer or a Caster if the Kiter/Tank is a WF. This can always Vary so depending on the group this will change a little bit. I however do not put any of the main healers in that position.

Why do I like tanking the Judge first?

I prefer to take on the Judge first while everyone is alive, while everyone is at their strongest, as the Judge is a lot tougher then the Jailer. Seems very logical to me anyway, if your going to have to fight him anyways why not do it when your at the strongest. The Jailer is a joke and everyone knows it so if some players are dead already its usually still just fine.

Why does the Jailer Kiter/Tank fight at the "Green Star"?

At the Green Star location there is a statue of a skeletal angel or whatever it is, there you can stand in between its wings and when blown generally just go straight up avoiding the spikes. When you fall back down you just get back in that spot. Its very safe so I prefer doing this.

So at this point I have designated 1 tank to get the Jailer the bard/Caster to keep them up and I have explained where they are to go so team 2 knows what they are doing. The Casters I designate to Kill the Elementals and anyone else that has either evasion or is confident enough to help kill the trash without being burned alive will be added to this team. I select a Main tank (Generally someone that I know will have aggro and that is a bit high on the HP if possible) to grab the Judge as soon as Part 1 kicks off. This tanks Job is to kite the Judge around until all of the trash is dealt with. Now that the group has been split into different groups with different jobs I explain where we will be doing the fighting.

There are two different Places to Tank the Judge on Elite that works great.
They are: In the Lava with backs against the shrine door (North Eastern Yellow Star), or In the Lava with backs against the Dog Cage Door in the South (South Central Yellow Star).

I personally Think the best place to fight is up by the shrine with your back against the gate STANDING IN THE FIRE. Here is why:

1. Standing in the fire you avoid the biggest killer in this part: The traps. For this to work players MUST stand in the lava. They MUST have their backs against that gate as if it was glued there. I understand that you will be taking some fire damage, but it is very little damage. usually around 30 damage every few seconds. Below I have Tested this and taken screen shots of standing in the Lava for all the non believers. From here the Healers can stand at a distance (Blue Stars) and heal the party without worries of being blown away into a trap.

I Make sure that the healers know their jobs, they are to heal, nothing more nothing less just sit back and maintain heals. The party is told that it is their jobs to remove their own curses. If they don't remove their own curses and they die it is their fault not the healers.

2. Another HUGE reason I choose to fight in the Lava with backs against the shrine door. While in that position if your back is against the shrine door and you die, your soul stone will be dropped on that spot instead of porting you into the penalty box. This allows one of the healers or bard to raise you. You are able to step back get a heal/fire resistance and get back in the fight. This reason alone should open some of your eyes to my logic instead of questioning everything that I say.


The other Yellow Star on the map is a great place to tank, as you will avoid a lot of traps and you can hop in the Dog Cage as soon as it opens avoiding the traps completely, however if you die you are dead for good on this part, and that is the only reason I still pick the north eastern area to do the main fight. I have led many many raids and had very very few wipes using this. I think it works well if people listen to directions, this of course is the Raid leaders responsibility to give out tasks and explain to players that don't yet understand.

Now with all the directions given out everyone does their jobs. Healers heal, Tanks tank/remove curses, and the part is over before you know it usually with little to no sp pot intake.


Here is a pic of my Wizard Lacer standing in the fire on Elite with nothing but Firestorm Greaves and a 30 fire resistance. The damage is very very small. To anyone that says you shouldn't tank in the Lava bc its too hard to heal I question your healers. I don't mean any offense by this, but if your running an Elite TOD maybe you should bring some confident healers. If you can't deal with 30 extra damage every few seconds then Idk what to tell ya. do the raid on hard/normal or use a better strategy that works for you.




Map of TOD part 1 with Symbols so nobody can say they don't know where I'm talking about:




Disclaimer: This isn't to say my way is better then anyone elses. This isn't about that at all, it is merely me explaining how I do things and why. Every time I lead a raid lately I am questioned about my tactics, then after the raid 95% of the people joining usually end up liking my tactics a lot because it makes healing easier, it makes for a smooth run. This game is about what works and yes there are many different ways of doing things and if I join a raid instead of leading it, I do what is asked of me and I don't talk down on other peoples techniques. It is what it is. If you have run a Tower with me or a Chrono, or a Dragon or anything for the matter I'm sure you can acknowledge why I end up leading the way I do.

For anyone that sees flaws or doesn't like something about how I run it feel free to chip in now. I enjoy learning as much as I can as well and if you have a better way of doing it I would definitely like to learn it.


Jen

[Shade]

Why do I like tanking the Judge first?

I prefer to take on the Judge first while everyone is alive, while everyone is at their strongest, as the Judge is a lot tougher then the Jailer. Seems very logical to me anyway, if your going to have to fight him anyways why not do it when your at the strongest. The Jailer is a joke and everyone knows it so if some players are dead already its usually still just fine.

I agree with your logic at first there, but seems your conclusion doesn't match up with said logic..

Take him on while everyone is at their strongest.

The raidgroup is actaully at it's strongest when all 12 members are within range of each other, as you have full dps/support/everything, the most possibly redudancy.

So if you fight the Judge all the way down at first..
You generally won't be at your full strength, because youd have 1-2 players fighting the Jailer seperate.

Since the jailer is a joke and dies much faster, as long as you confiden you can down him fast while keeping the judge tank alive, seems you should kill him first, so you can all fight the judge at his strongest.

Now there is ofcourse hte counter arguement "but people may die while killing the jailer" .. Its valid ,but personally I don't build my strategies around people dying heh, and do what it takes to minimize that risk (I put the strongest player on judge + all healers in the raid except 1 for the jailer tank)

Otherwise your strategy seems sound. Mines different then anything you probably seen on khyber tho (its more complex so no pugs really ever adopted it), and also works flawlessly on elite (even did it during that update where the traps did 1600 dmg succesfully hehe)
Just has a far more complex strategy on the judge then most are accustomed too.. Ill show ya it ingame sometime.

[Phalcon]

I agree with your logic at first there, but seems your conclusion doesn't match up with said logic..

Take him on while everyone is at their strongest.

The raidgroup is actaully at it's strongest when all 12 members are within range of each other, as you have full dps/support/everything, the most possibly redudancy.

So if you fight the Judge all the way down at first..
You generally won't be at your full strength, because youd have 1-2 players fighting the Jailer seperate.

Since the jailer is a joke and dies much faster, as long as you confiden you can down him fast while keeping the judge tank alive, seems you should kill him first, so you can all fight the judge at his strongest.

Now there is ofcourse hte counter arguement "but people may die while killing the jailer" .. Its valid ,but personally I don't build my strategies around people dying heh, and do what it takes to minimize that risk (I put the strongest player on judge + all healers in the raid except 1 for the jailer tank)

Otherwise your strategy seems sound. Mines different then anything you probably seen on khyber tho (its more complex so no pugs really ever adopted it), and also works flawlessly on elite (even did it during that update where the traps did 1600 dmg succesfully hehe)
Just has a far more complex strategy on the judge then most are accustomed too.. Ill show ya it ingame sometime.

@ Tanking Judge vs Jailer First: I am still kinda 50/50 here. I understand your points and I agree with it also, but at the same time I just feel the need to kill the Judge first. This is definitely something that I wouldn't say was better then getting the Jailer first. So Basically you can switch either of them but use the same tactics. I still am very pro standing in the fire though, at least on Elite.

@ your complex way of doing it: I'd love to see it done. Show me sometime. If I like it more then my way I'll start leading that way. Like I said I'm all up for learning new things keeping the good weeding out the bad. I believe the only way to truly get better is by thinking outside the box instead of just doing what the crowd says to do, because there are a ton of different ways of doing things generally there is always something better out there, Its just a matter or figuring it out.

[sirgog]

I prefer to have one person that can heal themselves distract the Orthon boss while the other 11 take out the Horned Devil one (I always get their names confused). That guarantees you have as few trash spawns as possible (the Horned Devil is the one that spawns the hellhounds).

The bosses do very little damage - I'd guess 40-60/second in melee if they are facing you, and none if they are not. Noone should be at risk of dying from their melee attacks alone, even if they are hit by a very badly timed curse. The only real dangers in the part are trash and wing buffets.


I tend to have a FvS keep the Orthon busy. They can stand near Harry, with the Orthon due east of them, and melee him or even actively block, healing themself quickly upon falling under 350hp. If buffetted, they have Leap of Faith to avoid the west wall (the only spikes in the area). They might need help getting trash off them at times.
Alternately (and this approach requires more play skill) they can kite the Orthon around the room, through the lava, and heal the main melee group whenever possible. This takes some strain off the healers for the Horned Devil, but is more difficult to execute. They must remain aware of the locations of the bosses at all times.


Other approaches I've seen used effectively involve having a WF melee keep the Orthon busy while an arcane Reconstructs them and deals with trash that jumps them. This works best if the melee has enough fire resistance (Red Scale Docent, Shroud resist item, etc) to ignore the lava.

[Jendrak]

While this is very similar to how we run this raid there is one thing about your method that puzzles me.

Why fight in the lava when a platform is litteraly 5-10 feet away???? i just dont see the point of having your healers waste the sp/resources (not that this fight is really that tough btu the extra dmg adds up) just to avoid taking the few extra seconds to walk out of the lava where you can still put your back to the doors and avoid the spikes.

[furbyoats]

I prefer to have one person that can heal themselves distract the Orthon boss while the other 11 take out the Horned Devil one (I always get their names confused). That guarantees you have as few trash spawns as possible (the Horned Devil is the one that spawns the hellhounds).

The bosses do very little damage - I'd guess 40-60/second in melee if they are facing you, and none if they are not. Noone should be at risk of dying from their melee attacks alone, even if they are hit by a very badly timed curse. The only real dangers in the part are trash and wing buffets.


I tend to have a FvS keep the Orthon busy. They can stand near Harry, with the Orthon due east of them, and melee him or even actively block, healing themself quickly upon falling under 350hp. If buffetted, they have Leap of Faith to avoid the west wall (the only spikes in the area). They might need help getting trash off them at times.
Alternately (and this approach requires more play skill) they can kite the Orthon around the room, through the lava, and heal the main melee group whenever possible. This takes some strain off the healers for the Horned Devil, but is more difficult to execute. They must remain aware of the locations of the bosses at all times.


Other approaches I've seen used effectively involve having a WF melee keep the Orthon busy while an arcane Reconstructs them and deals with trash that jumps them. This works best if the melee has enough fire resistance (Red Scale Docent, Shroud resist item, etc) to ignore the lava.

my guild leader never lets me do this on my wf fvs i think it makes it much smoother personally...11 people for the judge? yes please!

[Phalcon]

yup yup! I think the main point in all of my post was that on elite Standing in the Lava should be a no brainer. haha

[Shade]

While this is very similar to how we run this raid there is one thing about your method that puzzles me.

Why fight in the lava when a platform is litteraly 5-10 feet away???? i just dont see the point of having your healers waste the sp/resources (not that this fight is really that tough btu the extra dmg adds up) just to avoid taking the few extra seconds to walk out of the lava where you can still put your back to the doors and avoid the spikes.

in pugs if agro is shifting around and no ones taking care to manage the agro effectively, you can easily get shot off in a random direction and killed by the spikes if you fight in that location your talking about... Now thats avoidable given good agro management, but its a very small area to fight in and do that.

No real chance of it happening in the lava room, and agro management becomes less of a concern.

[laeris]

Shout out to Larry etc



Jailer is 0 fort and doesn't curse. It's always been beyond me why people put the WF tank on the Jailer and deal with the bad-ass, teleporting, cursing mofo first up with the entire party. Seems like somewhere along the line the order got mixed up or something.

As you said, you may want to deal with the tougher target first. But assuming your DPS is solid (and lets hope it is if you're doing elite..) the Jailer will drop EXTREMELY fast, then you have your entire party on the harder target instead of 10/2.

[Phalcon]

While this is very similar to how we run this raid there is one thing about your method that puzzles me.

Why fight in the lava when a platform is litteraly 5-10 feet away???? i just dont see the point of having your healers waste the sp/resources (not that this fight is really that tough btu the extra dmg adds up) just to avoid taking the few extra seconds to walk out of the lava where you can still put your back to the doors and avoid the spikes.

Bc, when you fight on the platform you usually end up hitting the spikes. Sitting in the lava will not hurt your healers sp, they are going to heal anyways so why not just have extra protection from the spikes, and like I said if you die there at least you can be raised. You can't raise if you die on the platform.

[Junts]

I agree iwth doing the Jailor first due to potential attrition. I will note that we tend to address shade's point by using a character who does not require any assistance to deal with the jailor in most cases: any healing-capable bard, a cleric/fvs, pale master, any wf caster, or any quicken/maximize ranger/paladin build is capable of this with nothing but possibly a displace every 4 minutes from outside assistance.

We tend to have that individual tank outside the shrine area because you can easily avoid being thrown into spikes by the jailor (who moves a lot less than the judge) in tha tlocation by keeping your back to the corner, and still also stay out of the lava.

Our preferred location to fight the Judge is immediately under the starting location. Players can orient their backs towards th emiddle of the room and they will not hit spikes due to the obstruction of the higher platform and the pillars that hold it up.

This is the location we arrived at as the safest for fighting the Judge back when teh traps were bugged out and did 1400 damage per shot. In that location it is not necessary to have separate teams or anything and there is ample safe ground for the healers to stand in, as well as minimal amount of time spent in lava and/or in danger of trap hits. There are only 2-3 throw-lines from that location that can lead to traps (mostly in the sw and nw corners) and players can easily avoid being on that side of the judge to avoid being thrown in that direction. The other directions are all obstructed and/or open safe walls.

[Phalcon]

Shout out to Larry etc



Jailer is 0 fort and doesn't curse. It's always been beyond me why people put the WF tank on the Jailer and deal with the bad-ass, teleporting, cursing mofo first up with the entire party. Seems like somewhere along the line the order got mixed up or something.

As you said, you may want to deal with the tougher target first. But assuming your DPS is solid (and lets hope it is if you're doing elite..) the Jailer will drop EXTREMELY fast, then you have your entire party on the harder target instead of 10/2.

I have no issues with how you guys tank the jailer first. and put a WF tank on the Judge. I in fact like it. My main concern is the spikes however and the Lava prevents this. That is the only main point I'm trying to make here. You can easily switch the two names in the start and use the same plans. You guys seemed concerned about the lava more then anything else and wanted to know why I do that. PPl Assume that the fire does 80ish damage but it doesn't if you've got your resistance. That is my main point and I see a lot of Elite failures happening part 1. This at least gives a guide to those that might not yet know or those that keep hating on the Lacer Tactics hahah but no hard feelings.

[laeris]

I have no concerns with the lava at all, I just don't see the need to fight in it when all it takes is a tank that can hold agro to face his back to the gate, or fight in one of the door areas.

Not everyone I take in groups will be geared out with Firestorm Greaves and Cloaks of Ice. To me, wearing the greaves unnecessarily means taking off Madstones/Corrosions and losing DPS to some degree.

I think its just personal preference whether you fight here or there, lava or not. There's more than one way to skin a cat; as long as you are appropriately positioned, there's no reason for anyone to die in traps. I'm not trying to make out that I'm the one controlling the majority opinion on Khyber--I'm certain many will agree with you for sure

[Milfeulle]

Been in your elite TOD group couple days ago on my pally with no wiz/sor in group and no displacement. I kited the jailor and couple dogs around with no healer healing me just some cure serious potions, goes pretty smooth. Personally I love jailor throwing me off mid-air so I can drink a couple more pots with ff on. If you die, you must did something wrong! You guys are awesome, I'm not gonna argue any techniques your guild is using. When you can 4 man elite tod, your method must be great!

[phalaeo]

Super nice guide, Jen- will pass it along for when Nothing Personal attempts our first Elite runs.

One question- why only on the Khyber forums? This is good info and a lot of people don't visit other server's forums... info is good, so shr, plz!

[Phalcon]

I have no concerns with the lava at all, I just don't see the need to fight in it when all it takes is a tank that can hold agro to face his back to the gate, or fight in one of the door areas.

Not everyone I take in groups will be geared out with Firestorm Greaves and Cloaks of Ice. To me, wearing the greaves unnecessarily means taking off Madstones/Corrosions and losing DPS to some degree.

I think its just personal preference whether you fight here or there, lava or not. There's more than one way to skin a cat; as long as you are appropriately positioned, there's no reason for anyone to die in traps. I'm not trying to make out that I'm the one controlling the majority opinion on Khyber--I'm certain many will agree with you for sure

You are correct that not everyone has a pair of Greaves. Not Everyone has a Cloak of Ice or can UMD Scrolls. I wouldn't tell anyone they weren't allowed to join my raid if they didn't, but I would also at the same time expect a player joining an Elite TOD to understand that it's not one of those easy pug raids that you can just show up with no gear and expect not to die a lot or be useless. In my opinion if your going to run an Elite TOD, you probably should have a pair of greaves or have enough hp to not really care about the fire damage.

Also I'm sure anyone will agree here on this; its better to live and still contribute in a fight then it is to die bc you couldn't hot swap an item. I would take the hit to dps if it meant I was living. Now with that said yes every player is different some builds are different. If you can handle not using greaves then by all means do so, but if you can't then don't.

Alright so yes you can have just 1 tank stand in the right position and tank while everyone else gets on the Mobs back, but 1.) even on his back you still get blown away so that's irrelevant and 2. Idk how many TOD elites you've ran, but I'm taking a hunch you've done your fair share, groups don't always listen. It seems no matter how hard you try to lead people still do their own thing.

You say why not tank in the Dog Cage rooms? I think they are a great place to tank but you do understand that this involves standing in LAVA right?

So once again we come to the same question: Is it better to tank in the Lava or tank on the platform? I know that I run TOD elite at least 6 times a week and very very very seldom is there a wipe. Very seldom do clerics drink pots, and this might have a little to do with the players in the group usually being geared and solid players but I do usually end up pugging at least 4-6 spots with random players I have never met to include healers. The Lava fighting has always worked great for me with very few issues other then people complaining about it.

I think we should go in each other raids maybe and just see how it goes. This wont say who's way is better not that its about that, but more of a good way to understand the way we run things differently. To actually see it done and led the ways we both intended, although to be honest I haven't had any problems with the TOD'S of yours that I have joined. They seemed to go just fine and I had a good time, so this isn't in any way an attack on you.

[Phalcon]

Super nice guide, Jen- will pass it along for when Nothing Personal attempts our first Elite runs.

One question- why only on the Khyber forums? This is good info and a lot of people don't visit other server's forums... info is good, so shr, plz!

Good point pallai glad ya liked it. I'll repost it later for all of ddo lol.

[Psychogene]

I think your tactic has merits but it also has disadvantages too. Taking it for what it worth (or how i see it) -

- advantage - everyones in the one spot so to speak, healing can be focused easier on one person as everyone is getting healed. aggro stays pretty much central or on the one location provided everyones back is to the correct wall.
- disadvantage - taking additional damage when it can be avoided.

I can see how it's an advantage to be able to res and not be in the penalty box but I don't see this as being good player practice.

I also think avoiding the traps when being blown up is very much the same as asking the players to remove their own curses - its their own responsibility to be positioned in my opinion to avoid the traps. Its not rocket science - and its not hard to get the judge facing the shrine and your backs to it. IMO teaching players to avoid the fire and the traps is better for everyone.

HUGE disadvantage - Mell preaching this tactic and promoting it like the latest greatest strategy has totally turned me off it. But each to his own, I have ran a few tod elites and never wiped in part 1 with just the usual played to death khyber learnt style I have adopted.

[laeris]

I think we should go in each other raids maybe and just see how it goes. This wont say who's way is better not that its about that, but more of a good way to understand the way we run things differently. To actually see it done and led the ways we both intended, although to be honest I haven't had any problems with the TOD'S of yours that I have joined. They seemed to go just fine and I had a good time, so this isn't in any way an attack on you.

Sure anyone's welcome

Of course mate and I'm not taking it that way . All I'm saying is there's more than one way and to each his own, as long as the job gets done I'm a happy camper. Hopefully I wasn't interpreted as saying that the idea of fighting in the lava is bogus, I was merely attempting to explain (from my perspective anyway) why most of the people I've run with on Khyber don't do the same thing.

+1 for the writeup, good read--I'll likely try the southern yellow star/healer position in the not too distant future

HUGE disadvantage - Mell preaching this tactic and promoting it like the latest greatest strategy has totally turned me off it.

LOL yeah she has been quite the proponent of this method, Lacer should've gotten her to post

[Milfeulle]

PPl Assume that the fire does 80ish damage but it doesn't if you've got your resistance. That is my main point and I see a lot of Elite failures happening part 1. This at least gives a guide to those that might not yet know or those that keep hating on the Lacer Tactics hahah but no hard feelings.

Spam Protection from elements Mass every 2 tick from one of the Wiz/Sor, or Clr/Fvs if party don't have a caster... problem solved?