TOD ELite - Part 1 Tactics

[Phalcon]

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 don't preach players to practice dying and then being able to rez. I lead raids, I don't control the players. I can't control players dodging spikes and almost every TOD elite random group I have joined wiped Part 1 due to various reasons. Once again that disadvantage about the lava seems weak to me. Assuming that your healers are going to be mass healing anyways nothing changes. They don't have to heal any harder. they still do the same thing as always mass heal/mass heal. The fire damage is small, don't be scared of it. I think having that safe back up of if you die you can get a raise is a lot better then hey everyone is expected to dodge spikes. Trust me when I run with all the people I know or we short man these, We do what we want too, but in a pug where you don't necessarily know everyone or their play styles, this helps the healers in the end, it doesn't make it harder for them. Not only that, but when players are blown around they generally all end up in the same spot making it even easier for the healers.

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.

Its not just as easy as drinking pots... to drink a curse pot you click 1 button. To dodge a trap while blown in the air randomly isn't exactly something everyone knows how to do, and your comments seem quite strange because your talking about avoiding the traps as the big issues... That's exactly what I am doing here, setting the entire group up to avoid those traps... nothing more. If you don't like the standing in the fire or can't handle it in the party your with that's fine, I'm not giving you **** or insulting you. Like what was said earlier we all do things differently and if the shoe fits why not wear it?

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.

This doesn't really have anything to do with Mel here, so bringing her into this I'm kind of baffled tbh. I've just had players on khyber keep questioning me and how I do things, speaking up in raids etc and this post is to explain it all. In the end if you don't like it by all means don't do it. I will say though that unless you have a good plan, TOD part 1 can be quite messy.

[ReveredCat]

guys u call all these strategies?u really should try some other MMORPG games with really hard raids like WOW

everything in DDO is so easy dude, you you and you stand there and hold your left mouse key till your target dead I really dont think its even worth to be discussed.

in some other game trashes on the way to a boss may stuck a whole normal good guild for a week or two.and some boss might not be able to taken down in worldwide until it gets nerf.AND even after tons of farm runs on some boss u still may get several fails before u eventually kill it on a normal sunday.

for DDO, any so-called "strategies" can be leant in an hour and be mastered in few runs with no fail chances (as long as u really get it).nothing is random nor risky.everything of the game itself is under conctrol, of cuz players are always not though.

Im not trying to raise other games, just I think DDO is quite a easy game technically.Its full of fun(one of the reasons why I like it ) but it's never been too hard at least till now.

so both methods above work for me , really no point to argue which is better.

btw,no throwing tomatoes or eggs at me this is my first post on the forums except for trading ones

[maddmatt70]

I like tanking the jailor first if there is an adequate character to kite the judge around. By adequate I like a high ac charcter with high reflex save or wf or palemaster self healer and I prefer the ac reflex character. Just too much perishing and loss of boat buffs if the kiter can not kite the judge so often its judge first.

[maddmatt70]

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.

Yes you kite the judge when the dogs come out in the dog room.. Yawn..

[laeris]

btw,no throwing tomatoes or eggs at me this is my first post on the forums except for trading ones

We can't all be megauber like you *throws tomatoes at*

[sirgog]

guys u call all these strategies?u really should try some other MMORPG games with really hard raids like WOW

everything in DDO is so easy dude, you you and you stand there and hold your left mouse key till your target dead I really dont think its even worth to be discussed.

in some other game trashes on the way to a boss may stuck a whole normal good guild for a week or two.and some boss might not be able to taken down in worldwide until it gets nerf.AND even after tons of farm runs on some boss u still may get several fails before u eventually kill it on a normal sunday.

for DDO, any so-called "strategies" can be leant in an hour and be mastered in few runs with no fail chances (as long as u really get it).nothing is random nor risky.everything of the game itself is under conctrol, of cuz players are always not though.

Im not trying to raise other games, just I think DDO is quite a easy game technically.Its full of fun(one of the reasons why I like it ) but it's never been too hard at least till now.

so both methods above work for me , really no point to argue which is better.

btw,no throwing tomatoes or eggs at me this is my first post on the forums except for trading ones

The 'WoW is harder than DDO' comment is true, but it is totally irrelevant in a discussion of strategies for the hardest raid encounter in this game (well, HoX elite is actually tougher than ToD part 1 elite, but due to a widely known exploit that trivialises HoX elite, it's currently not the case right now).

I'm not aware of people trolling WoW forums looking for threads where people are discussing strategies for Heroic Coroborus in Stonecore and posting 'this fight is easy mode, wait till you get to Heroic Ascendant Council'.

[ReveredCat]

The 'WoW is harder than DDO' comment is true, but it is totally irrelevant in a discussion of strategies for the hardest raid encounter in this game (well, HoX elite is actually tougher than ToD part 1 elite, but due to a widely known exploit that trivialises HoX elite, it's currently not the case right now).

I'm not aware of people trolling WoW forums looking for threads where people are discussing strategies for Heroic Coroborus in Stonecore and posting 'this fight is easy mode, wait till you get to Heroic Ascendant Council'.

I know man I know.discusses like u and me repeated millions times in the past and I know there will be ppl reply to my post like this in a minute.so thats not my point.I just wanna say these two methods both work and dont have too much differences in diffifulty.if you found either of them hard to do that was because of your group your players not the method itself.

you dont get hurt with either of these 2 methods so lets just move on and find something more fun on other raids/methods/exploits.

[Phalcon]

I know man I know.discusses like u and me repeated millions times in the past and I know there will be ppl reply to my post like this in a minute.so thats not my point.I just wanna say these two methods both work and dont have too much differences in diffifulty.if you found either of them hard to do that was because of your group your players not the method itself.

you dont get hurt with either of these 2 methods so lets just move on and find something more fun on other raids/methods/exploits.

I never did say anything was hard. I never said my way was better either. Never said other peoples ways were worse. Some players on Khyber did question my methods, and here it is all very well explained I think. Haters will be Haters.

[xanadu324]

I would just like to add my 2 cents by saying IBTL

That is all.

[sirgog]

Oh and back on topic: When healing, I'd much rather heal someone through predictable fire damage (~30-50 a tick to people without any abnormal fire resistance; that's 20 DPS on top of the Horned Devil's ~40-60 DPS) than try to heal them through the insane damage those traps can do, or even to try to heal players that are scattered across the room by wing buffets.

One thing about this part however - if there's anywhere an arcane archer shines in this game, it's TOD elite part 1.

[Phalcon]

I would just like to add my 2 cents by saying IBTL

That is all.

Somehow I don't see this being locked but maybe who knows. Not much someone can really say bad about this other then: "I don't really like this method" which isn't that bad... maybe though well see.

[Psychogene]

Once again that disadvantage about the lava seems weak to me. Assuming that your healers are going to be mass healing anyways nothing changes. They don't have to heal any harder. they still do the same thing as always mass heal/mass heal. The fire damage is small, don't be scared of it. I think having that safe back up of if you die you can get a raise is a lot better then hey everyone is expected to dodge spikes.

Fair enough, you have your views about this and I have mine. About being scared of fire, well personally I'm not thank you. But I'll try explain my view on this - as I said before, I prefer people learn how to do TOD and 'dodge' the spikes then stand in a corner or whatever and do this part ala stand in the one spot exploit styles like the ball method in DQ 2 epix. You don't expect players to do TOD elite unless they are familiar with normal and hard of doing it in part 1, so why isn't it a safe assumption that by the time they do TOD Elite they are familiar with what happens when they get blown up?

Teach players better playing habits and styles and they are will be much better for it. I have faith in the people joining my groups that they are able to avoid the spikes, and if not clear instructions on what to do takes like all of 10 seconds to explain. If people are not able to execute instructions then they are not ready to do TOD Elite.

All i can really say is this way of standing in the fire is just a different way of doing it but not inherently better. TOD Part 1 isn't the hardest part of the raid anyway, it can get messy yes but you shouldn't even be doing TOD Elite unless you can sufficiently avoid the traps. Whats kind of sad is this game has so many of these cheap locations or tactics that they should really find a way to plug these holes to make those raid/quests more challenging, especially at the highest difficulty level. But I'm guilty of using those 'easy mode' spots because being lazy and sometimes drunk thinking is painful.

Anyway this way or that way can b debated as many times as people want, and we've probably done it long enough to know what works for us, and I doubt either of us will switch their tactics anytime soon so let it be. I've never really a fan of getting involved in forum talk too much so thats all I really want to say on this.

This doesn't really have anything to do with Mel here, so bringing her into this I'm kind of baffled tbh.

First I heard about this strategy was from Mel while we were halfway done with part 1. And I've sinced heard this being promoted from her, passionately I might add, as the ultimate method for a flawless victory of some sort. I'm kind of baffled myself tbh.

[Junts]

The 'WoW is harder than DDO' comment is true, but it is totally irrelevant in a discussion of strategies for the hardest raid encounter in this game (well, HoX elite is actually tougher than ToD part 1 elite, but due to a widely known exploit that trivialises HoX elite, it's currently not the case right now).

I'm not aware of people trolling WoW forums looking for threads where people are discussing strategies for Heroic Coroborus in Stonecore and posting 'this fight is easy mode, wait till you get to Heroic Ascendant Council'.

Even sans exploit - which I dont know about, since i don't run the raid anymore - HoX elite is extremely easy if you're familiar wit hthe quest.

[sirgog]

All i can really say is this way of standing in the fire is just a different way of doing it but not inherently better. TOD Part 1 isn't the hardest part of the raid anyway, it can get messy yes but you shouldn't even be doing TOD Elite unless you can sufficiently avoid the traps. Whats kind of sad is this game has so many of these cheap locations or tactics that they should really find a way to plug these holes to make those raid/quests more challenging, especially at the highest difficulty level. But I'm guilty of using those 'easy mode' spots because being lazy and sometimes drunk thinking is painful.

What in the raid is tougher than part 1 on elite?

I've never seen an Elite group wipe on a later part; I've seen a fair number of part 1 wipes, most caused by losing people that are standing in a position that makes them think they are safe from wing buffets. They position themselves carefully due west of the boss near the east wall (so he'll blow you across the room, nowhere near spikes), but get surprised when the boss teleports behind them and wing buffets them into 3-10 spikes.

OTOH part 3 is easy as long as Orthons are dealt with promptly, albeit resource intensive if an exceptional tank is not available; and part 2 is the same as Normal except Nytharios' extra 83% HP makes it take longer and gives more opportunities for the kiter to make an error.

[Junts]

I don't preach players to practice dying and then being able to rez. I lead raids, I don't control the players. I can't control players dodging spikes and almost every TOD elite random group I have joined wiped Part 1 due to various reasons. Once again that disadvantage about the lava seems weak to me. Assuming that your healers are going to be mass healing anyways nothing changes. They don't have to heal any harder. they still do the same thing as always mass heal/mass heal. The fire damage is small, don't be scared of it. I think having that safe back up of if you die you can get a raise is a lot better then hey everyone is expected to dodge spikes. Trust me when I run with all the people I know or we short man these, We do what we want too, but in a pug where you don't necessarily know everyone or their play styles, this helps the healers in the end, it doesn't make it harder for them. Not only that, but when players are blown around they generally all end up in the same spot making it even easier for the healers.



Its not just as easy as drinking pots... to drink a curse pot you click 1 button. To dodge a trap while blown in the air randomly isn't exactly something everyone knows how to do, and your comments seem quite strange because your talking about avoiding the traps as the big issues... That's exactly what I am doing here, setting the entire group up to avoid those traps... nothing more. If you don't like the standing in the fire or can't handle it in the party your with that's fine, I'm not giving you **** or insulting you. Like what was said earlier we all do things differently and if the shoe fits why not wear it?



This doesn't really have anything to do with Mel here, so bringing her into this I'm kind of baffled tbh. I've just had players on khyber keep questioning me and how I do things, speaking up in raids etc and this post is to explain it all. In the end if you don't like it by all means don't do it. I will say though that unless you have a good plan, TOD part 1 can be quite messy.

It isn't impossible, especially in certain parts of the room, to make it relatively easy to position yourself so that being thrown away will not put you into a trap. The judge's throwback is ab it harder to react to because it is faster, but both of them have an animation to which you can react by moving yourself so that you will be thrown back into a pillar, into the platform above, or simply in a direction where there are no dangerous spikes or traps.

There are certainly a number of advantages to putting the party into the lava somewhere - it's easier for people who are lagging, it doesn't require them to learn anything, etc. On the other hand, it also has disadvantages - not every player has firestorm greaves for every character (or can wear them without losing something that might be important), the added damage can contribute to character death during unlucky situations (ie being cursed again while your curse pot is on timer, for example) because it will also apply if you jump away from the boss and re-enter the lava, etc.

It's a viable tactic, but it isn't the only way to avoid people dying on the spikes. Frankly, I don't evne really try to teach people how to avoid it other than having them fight in a relatively safe location, but it's relatively uncommon for multiple characters to die in elite tod pt 1s unless a poor job is done killing the elementals for some reason or other (like a no-caster run, which I've done before). I am an aggressively indifferent leader to group composition, and I would prefer to stay that way as much as possible. I've done no-caster towers with only 2 healers, with suulo, on elite, and I expect any tactic I use regularly to be able to be used nearly regardless of party composition.

I don't necessarily think that this tactic falls into that category, as the added damage might be problematic if the only healers in the raid are a pair of warchanters.

I'd also note that going into the lava is dramatically easier if you have any radiant servants around, but we usually don't because no one plays clerics anymore. I'd say our healers are split 50% fvs/40% bard/10% cleric at the moment, and most of the clerics are people's 4th-string characters (with a few notable exceptions).

[Phalcon]

Fair enough, you have your views about this and I have mine. About being scared of fire, well personally I'm not thank you. But I'll try explain my view on this - as I said before, I prefer people learn how to do TOD and 'dodge' the spikes then stand in a corner or whatever and do this part ala stand in the one spot exploit styles like the ball method in DQ 2 epix. You don't expect players to do TOD elite unless they are familiar with normal and hard of doing it in part 1, so why isn't it a safe assumption that by the time they do TOD Elite they are familiar with what happens when they get blown up?

Teach players better playing habits and styles and they are will be much better for it. I have faith in the people joining my groups that they are able to avoid the spikes, and if not clear instructions on what to do takes like all of 10 seconds to explain. If people are not able to execute instructions then they are not ready to do TOD Elite.

All i can really say is this way of standing in the fire is just a different way of doing it but not inherently better. TOD Part 1 isn't the hardest part of the raid anyway, it can get messy yes but you shouldn't even be doing TOD Elite unless you can sufficiently avoid the traps. Whats kind of sad is this game has so many of these cheap locations or tactics that they should really find a way to plug these holes to make those raid/quests more challenging, especially at the highest difficulty level. But I'm guilty of using those 'easy mode' spots because being lazy and sometimes drunk thinking is painful.

Anyway this way or that way can b debated as many times as people want, and we've probably done it long enough to know what works for us, and I doubt either of us will switch their tactics anytime soon so let it be. I've never really a fan of getting involved in forum talk too much so thats all I really want to say on this.



First I heard about this strategy was from Mel while we were halfway done with part 1. And I've sinced heard this being promoted from her, passionately I might add, as the ultimate method for a flawless victory of some sort. I'm kind of baffled myself tbh.

I do think part 1 is the hardest part of Tower Elite. Regardless, if your done in this debate as you call it, then adios, its not like it was created for you. Still bringing Mel up... that's what baffles me tbh. I don't believe I have once said anything about her....

[Junts]

What is the hardest part of the raid if part 1 isn't? I myself think part 1 is the roughest part. The other 2 parts are simple if done right. I guess I need to be in some of your TOD Elites. Not many ppl run it elite though and when they do its usually a part 1 wipe.

Part 1 is certainly the part of the raid that is prone to the most variation and/or randomness. Pt 3 is more mechanically challenging but since the challenge doesn't change and it is relatively free of random elements of chance (other than exceptionally bad timing on stuns or disintegrates), it doesn't take much to adapt your party to a viable strategy to overcome the challenge reliably.

But lets get real: elite tower may be one of the few things that is reliably challenging to well-equipped players, but it isn't that hard. The requirements are someone who won't die while tanking Horoth (whether due to hp, healing amp, ac, or whtaever combination of those you desire), adequate amounts of healing to heal that person + 1 person with mass cure capability to heal the Suulo party, and adequate dps to complete the raid before those people start drinking mana pots.

We're not exactly dealing with something outside the abilities of most guilds. What most guilds lack is the willingness to fail the quest a few times and burn some mana pots learning the most efficient tactics for their particular personnel.

[Psychogene]

OK numot, maybe part 1 is the hardest then ... feel free to respond to add to your already 10,000 + posts.

[Terebinthia]

I'm not the target audience (been burned by some bad PUGs on my healers, so TOD has become a PLACE I DO NOT GO TM) but I'm really enjoying the tactics discussion.

I guess I should venture back in on my Exploiter sometime....

[Terebinthia]

I'm not the target audience (been burned by some bad PUGs on my divine casters, so TOD has become a PLACE I DO NOT GO TM) but I'm really enjoying the tactics discussion.

I guess I should venture back in on my Exploiter sometime....