How Epic is Epic?

[Moltier]

If you dont have yet, get Quicken. Your mana is fine, your health is ok, with quicken, you could heal the hardest epics, raids. But of course you need some experience first, and that will come in time.

[Sarisa]

Here are some fairly easy ways to build yourself up for epics:

• Pick up one of the three 6 Constitution/Greater False Life belts from Amrath. The Belt of the Defender of Siberys (Genesis Point), Knost's Belt (Genesis Point), or Vornes Belt (Sins of Attrition). Genesis Point is the easiest of these to PUG, but you can only get belts in the end chest. They're nice because they combine a lot into one item.
• Pick up the two Ardor VIII clickies from Amrath. These are Amara's Belt (New Invasion) and Tokala's Belt (Genesis Point). These two belts together gives you 18 minutes of a 75% boost in healing power, no matter what weapon you are wielding at the time.
• You have a Toughness item, good. A nice way to combine the two is the Minos Legens helm from Necro IV, from 20 Tapestries. This will let you replace your armour with something a bit better.
• You have good strength, so when you don't have to heal that instant, you can swing various weapons to help the party. Rahl's Mights (Mindsunder optional) are very good, since you're proficient in them and they have Improved Destruction, which lowers the mobs AC by 4 (not 8, it's incorrect text). A Dreamspitter (Reaver's Fate) or Staff of the Shadow (Second Lordsmarch Chain) can level drain a mob when you hit a crit. A weapon you are proficient in with Destruction can also help lower a mob's AC by another 4.
• Pick up as many SP restoration clickies as you can. The Mysterious Bauble (Weapon's Shipment) is best, but it's a big grind. While you're farming for the Bauble, you might also pick up a Shimmering Arrowhead (+2 to hit, +4 Seeker), which is a great trinket to use when you're melee'ing. Other SP clickies include the Ring of Spell Storing (Sands explorer area), Archivist's Necklace (1-time Misery Peak reward), Twisted Talisman (Last Stand), and Vile Blasphemy (Abbot raid).

Start with the "easiest" epics, like Snitch, Big Top, Bargain of Blood, Tharashk Arena (VoN1), Claw of Vulkoor, Fathom the Depths, and Black Loch. These all have a good number of shrines, run quite often (except for Black Loch), are easy to learn the tricks, and don't involve a lot of micromanagement of healing.

After you get a bit of experience, then you can do Prisoner (VoN2), Partycrashers, Last Stand, The Tide Turns, the VoN6 raid, the Demon Queen raid (try to break 400hp first), and with a good leader, Chamber of Raiyum (Wizard King). Chrono can be attempted with a good group, it all comes down to cooperation, organization, and an excellent CC caster. Some of these quests are easy, they just have a lot of special tricks you need to do to make them easy, involve a lot of micromanagement of healing (you'll be torn in several directions at once), or have specific equipment needs.

The harder epics are Chain of Flames, Offering of Blood, Against the Demon Queen (preraid), Haywire's Foundry (VoN4), Jungles of Khyber (VoN3), Vault of Night (preraid), Devil's Assault, Small Problem, and Spies in the House. These you want to avoid until you have a lot of experience with running epics.

Since the OP is on Sarlona, most PUG eChrono's there run with 1-2 CC arcanes, 2 divines, 0-1 bards, rest DPS (this counts Sorcs). When there's good DPS and crowd control, it runs easy and nobody has to use any resources besides a few scrolls. When there's not, it's a serious resource drain. You have to be sure everyone is paying attention and calls out Abishai and Armorers, and does NOT attack the stoned casters. It's the Abishai that can wipe out groups.

[Kalari]

Sorry your first epic was rough I remember my first Echrono and this was a guild run. It was very frustrating many epic raids can be including Evons when your going in trying to learn how to get things done. Do not blame your HP's or SP I do think they are fine but those raids really need organization you have to have a strong leader who makes his voice heard and assigns proper roles even then stuff can go wrong people can do things that go off the plan's kilter but more often then not they listen we follow threw and get the epic beat down.

Part 2 of Echrono was the area I had most problems in Bloodplate having people assigned to trash and dealing with casters and armorers can be hectic. That part made me dread healing or even barding in there at first. Decent CC and good dps really does help in that raid from what Ive learned.

Hope your next attempt at Epics is better

[KoboldKiller]

It's as epic as this.

[Raoull]

As a healer, so much of your percieved quality will depend on what the others do.

I did my first eChrono recently. It was about half guys who knew each other, and the rest pugs. We had 3 divines, including a FvS among the buddies.

During the bank fight... it got very crazy. People were dying, and they were blaming the healers for being noobs. Eventually we pulled it out, but I did have a span where I was doing far more Rezzing than healing. (The 3 rez shuffle... rez, true, and scrolled rezes to get around the cooldowns....)

Now... I sort of was a noob. It was my first eChrono, and I had only done regular chrono once before on a melee. I probably should have pointed this out when joining the group... but I've been stung a ton recently trying to get into the things I want to do but haven't yet (Tod, VoN, certain Epics)... so I just quietly applied for the group. (Had I read this thread first, where people mention that eChrono is one of the harder epics, I probably wouldn't have done that....)

In that bank fight, I was a bit overly conservative with my mana (but I plow through heal scrolls like they're free... and they practically are at cap). Since I wasn't sure how long it was going to last, I didn't want to start chugging pots. Had I tossed more masses and real heals, there would have been less deaths I imagine.

The other PuG cleric also did a few things wrong. He got close to dying a few times, and would get reminded to heal himself. And, after that fight.... he did open a chest while one of the buddies was restarting his client to deal with lag. It seemed accidental, but in hindsight he may have been ****y beause of the hate.

(And the one supposedly quality FvS.... he died once and I rezzed him, forgot where. But... its an epic raid. I figure it totally likely that he just got hit with a couple of bad saves on some caster attacks. It happens to the best. Over all, I'm sure he was better than us puggers, as he seemed to have way more epic experience.)

The sewers fight was similar, but not as bad. I'm not sure if people went down much (I may have tossed a few Rezzes, but never the full 3 spell rotation), but they were still *****ing about noob healers. (Some of that may have been testiness due to the opened chest....)

The final fight? Flawless. No problems at all.

The difference? In the first two fights, the melees were all over the place doing their own thing. For the Abashi's, they did the "OK, red goes down first" (I forget the actual order), and so on... so the melees were nicely grouped together for mass heal. The tank was even keeping the bosses back turned, and things were going well enough, I stepped into the melee to do a touch of DPS, and put my aura and bursts to good use. (I do have 500 hps in earth stance, this may not be a good idea for all divines)

It seems to me that once you're a vaguely competent healer, maybe 75% of your percieved quality by a group will have more to do with their own actions than yours. Are they getting their own curses? Are they staying clumped for MH? And so on. Not to mention how well the arcanes are handling CC. After learning to do quickened mass heal, it seems the next most important skill is mana conservation. (I've noticed many healers don't burn through scrolls like I do... but some of that is as a clonk I do have a smaller mana pool. So I'll scroll heal at 90% mana just to keep my options open. I mainly only resort to normal heal if scroll is on cooldown or I really need that quicken for speed.) Much of that skill will be based on how many times you've run a particular quest. But... as long as you have pots you're willing to burn through, that skill isn't even necessary.


Hopefully I won't be noob at all much longer for this type of stuff... did a ToD this morning (after being correctly called out as a noob for eChrono, I was honest this time. I got grilled a bit about my mana level, but mentioning my bauble + pots appeased him. Probably should have mentioned the 3 stacks of heal scrolls....). It went like clockwork. I handled the tank soloing a boss in the first big fight, which took almost nothing but heal scrolls, so I even tossed a few MH's into the other pack. The only other divine even kited the... uh... thingie.. for the next big fight, so I solo healed the second big fight. It was totally simple... but... the melees stuck in a pack pretty perfectly the whole time, even with people being chucked around in that first fight. (Next time.. warn the noob cleric about that part....) Even with my "low" mana (a tad over 1600), I don't think I ever went below 600, although I triggered my baubles in every fight once I got to about 1K and there was enough of a gap in heal needs. How the melees act is a huge deciding factor in how smoothly healing goes.


I imagine a mediocre cleric, naked except for HF, +6 con, GFL items, and with nothing else but a stack of heal and rez scrolls, can take a group with a great arcane and well equipted, well coordinated, melees through every quest in this game.

[Chai]

Can you heal through a sins on elite? If so, you can heal through an epic quest.

[aristarchus1000]

Can you heal through a sins on elite? If so, you can heal through an epic quest.

A perfect example of how healing is 75% the party your are in. Being able to heal Sins on elite is easy if you have well built party members, and a complete nightmare if they are not, and if they can't coordinate.

In fact, in over 50% of the Sins groups I've run (I usually solo it), I've found it easier to let them die and then carrying their stones until the end.

[Jubbers]

Good observation about the healing getting easier when the group dosn't screw you by running all over the place being unable to handle the agro they are taking.

One key that I have figured out, (run epics on a monk, barb, cleric, wizzy and my FVS) as I have a few runs of everything under my belt, is that when the melee's focus on one target things go well. The only place where this is a bad idea is devil's assault where the stunners need to handle the casters with out being in the pile for support.

You'll get a feel for how it flows as you run and you WILL make mistakes, it's gona happen.

As this is a cleric thread I'll add that I had run epics on my cleric with 380HP and 1900SP and things would normally go fine. I did find that having 2200SP and 490HP makes me a lot more survivable when things go wrong, which can happen.

+6/+7 con, +1/+2 ecpt con, GFL/SFL, +45 or +25(small/med only) GS HP item, argo faction, toughness, +2 boat buff, rage and toughness enhancements

There are ways to push you HP to lvls that will increase your survivabilty to where you feel comfortable running things, it's a nice place to be.

[vVAnjilaVv]

Elite maybe even Hard endgame non-epics are way harder....if you have been pulling those off successfully you have nothing to worry about as far as doing epics.

If your DC's are not that high tho I would advise letting the melee doing most of the killing and use you SP elsewhere/wisely.

[donfilibuster]

echrono is wipe happy but i find it fun because in those cases it feels like a full blown warzone, where everyone shouts and take cover, and shout even more when an Abishai shows up.

[LoveNeverFails]

Here are some fairly easy ways to build yourself up for epics:
I read it, promise

Excellent advice, thanks for spelling everything out (cause i am an idiot) +1 tyvvvvvvm

I completed my first epic tonight. Partycrashers. I did little more then feel like a piker because the leader was an awesome Sorc, who blew through everything, then halfway through put a ddoor up and said "Ok, wait for me to come get you". Which, not knowing what i was looking for, I did. Hopefully I'll be able to find more groups that will actually allow me to follow along. So far it has been one extreme to the other, lol.

So Amrath I need to get into, and still looking for a GFL item. I think I'm probably the poorest capped toon on the planet.

I did get my minos though! so i can try to find some better armor now! lol.

[cheever77]

Can you heal through a sins on elite? If so, you can heal through an epic quest.

THIS is easy.....

As on my elite runs through sins there is only one person to heal.... ME!!!

Never done with a group and don't plan too.

As for your toon OP. It can be tough when the group splits in eChrono. But hey mate you gave it a go. I have tried to solo heal once on a mostly pug run and it was the first time I have ddoor'd out of end fight to shrine, was also my first epic failure in eChrono. I put that failure down as a learning experience and move on. I am sure ppl were calling me noob to but oh well....

As a healer whether you plan to be a healbot, battle cleric or offensive caster you will always be called noob at some point. Heck I know I was and I am sure at times I still do.... You very rarely get thanked when you heal well but boy oh boy do they lay the blame on you when they die.......

[Astraghal]

Epic Chronoscope is hard for under geared groups but rarely fails due to bad healing in my experience. Usually it's because the melee don't have enough DPS or casters don't have the DC for reliable crowd control. It's one of those raids where if you got to do a blow by blow analysis from the perspective of each toon in the aftermath, you would get a nasty shock at how little some of the melee actually contributed.

[Pingshot]

I know I should start looking for a Torc. And I need to finish the third tier on my con-opp goggles. I just wanna know, how epic is epic? Can I run an Epic and keep a party alive with my HPs and SPs as they are?

Mysterious bauble is a MUST. I understand you are bored to grind, but this is item you definitely must have.
I hope it is not too late - DON'T DO Conc.op. Don't waste your larges for such useless stuff. It procs at rate ~1-2% opposite the Torc, that have by my feelings ~10-15% proc. rate. Do smoke-screen googles, or mineral googles - they are much more useful. Wasting larges for conc.op googles was my worst mistake. And - yes, I have capped cleric and know what I'm talking about. You also should get 2 belts from Amrath asap - Tokala and Amara to have superior Ardor 8 clickies, they isn't too hard to get, because usually everyone participate to pass them to healer.
You also should grind some Yugoloth favor to be able to buy Endurance pots - they would give you +40 hp for 15 mins. Very useful in raids like EADQ2.

UPD
Also, if you are human, put some AP into 'human recovery' tier 1 or 2 should be enough and grind Levik's bracers in Hound of Xoriat raid. This will give you 144% healing amplification, and your aura will heal you up to 36-40 hp per non-crit tick (and near 80-100 hp per crit) - good addition to survivability.
One more thing - Healing lore. You can use scepter from "Invaders!", or "Staff of Fleshshaping" from Harbinger of Madness, or make Tier2 GS mace (they are mostly cheap to make, Tier3 is better of course, but again - don't waste your larges). I personally don't like to have lore on weapons - you will often switching to scrolls, and so it isn't best spot to be placed. I personally use Gauntlets of Eternity from Reavers fate, but due to my unluckiness only got them at 20 complete.

My English is bad, I know)

[Kinerd]

Mysterious bauble is a MUST. I understand you are bored to grind, but this is item you definitely must have.
I hope it is not too late - DON'T DO Conc.op. Don't waste your larges for such useless stuff. It procs at rate ~1-2% opposite the Torc, that have by my feelings ~10-15% proc. rate. Do smoke-screen googles, or mineral googles - they are much more useful. Wasting larges for conc.op googles was my worst mistake. And - yes, I have capped cleric and know what I'm talking about. You also should get 2 belts from Amrath asap - Tokala and Amara to have superior Ardor 8 clickies, they isn't too hard to get, because usually everyone participate to pass them to healer.
You also should grind some Yugoloth favor to be able to buy Endurance pots - they would give you +40 hp for 15 mins. Very useful in raids like EADQ2.

UPD
Also, if you are human, put some AP into 'human recovery' tier 1 or 2 should be enough and grind Levik's bracers in Hound of Xoriat raid. This will give you 144% healing amplification, and your aura will heal you up to 36-40 hp per non-crit tick (and near 80-100 hp per crit) - good addition to survivability.
One more thing - Healing lore. You can use scepter from "Invaders!", or "Staff of Fleshshaping" from Harbinger of Madness, or make Tier2 GS mace (they are mostly cheap to make, Tier3 is better of course, but again - don't waste your larges). I personally don't like to have lore on weapons - you will often switching to scrolls, and so it isn't best spot to be placed. I personally use Gauntlets of Eternity from Reavers fate, but due to my unluckiness only got them at 20 complete.

My English is bad, I know)

All the figures I can find have CO and Torc as more or less identical SP benefit: 4% for 25 and 5% for 20, respectively.

I find healing lore almost completely useless - critical heals are almost always overheals, and usually by quite a bit. The Staff is outstanding for having Efficient Metamagic (and being able to grind without a raid timer), I don't care about anything else on it.

A Mysterious Bauble is nice to have but in no way "a must". I still don't have one on my cleric (despite many tries) and we get through epics just fine.

[Raoull]

All the figures I can find have CO and Torc as more or less identical SP benefit: 4% for 25 and 5% for 20, respectively.

I find healing lore almost completely useless - critical heals are almost always overheals, and usually by quite a bit. The Staff is outstanding for having Efficient Metamagic (and being able to grind without a raid timer), I don't care about anything else on it.

A Mysterious Bauble is nice to have but in no way "a must". I still don't have one on my cleric (despite many tries) and we get through epics just fine.

Torc definitely procs way more than Con Opp. After finishing mine, it seemed like it never procced at all. I went into an explorer area, took off my torc, and let some giant skellies beat on me for a while. Eventually it did proc... its not broken, but it procs considerably less than half the time of the torc it seems, for no more, and perhaps less, mana.

I mostly agree about critical heals. They're useless... except for the aura. Since that goes near constantly, you can just smooth out any advantage of critical heals. Still, I keep my healing lore item in my bank and never pull it out. Doesn't matter enough to use a eq slot on.

Baubles are nice... but definitely not required considering my bauble really does nothing more than change my splashed cleric with a lowish wisdom mana into that of a regular cleric. I could probably get by without it, but its great to have a potion that you don't mind using when you're at like half mana just to be sure....