Meleeing the EE Truthful one?

[Ape_Man]

Who's doing this without getting pasted? Get someone to kite and beat on his tale? Trolling for better ideas.

Beat him tonight on EE with ranged that was slow, anyway to speed it up would be great.

[Purgatorii]

First and foremost DDO is a game where combat animations are key. If you are outside the area of effect of a boss's attack, the attack will not hit you, plain and simple. Any physical attack can be avoided in this fashion, and even beam or ball spells can be avoided with appropriate timing and the correct amount of distance. That being said, I think the following tip is something that people need to hear and not JUST for this raid:

***** Learn to not stand still while meleeing. ******

Obviously you're asking this question because when running this raid on EH or EE (or maybe even EN, he can still hit like a truck if you're not fighting him right) you're probably not overgeared to the point that you can just shield block stand still using your PRR to mitigate enough damage that Boss DPS < Healing output.

So here are some tips:

The Truthful One has a few melee attacks, one where he swipes his front paw in an arc in front of him, one where he spins his whole body, and one where he swings his tail twice (there might be others but these three are the most used). All three attacks' animations can be avoided COMPLETELY with proper footwork.

If you see the dragon draw his paw back, it means he's either going to swipe it or spin based on the position of the person holding aggro (if the person is in front, its a claw swipe, if the person is on the side/behind the dragon, it's going to be a full body spin). If he's going for a paw swipe, you are safe from this animation on his side or behind him. If he's going for a full body spin, you need to backpedal as soon as he ***** his arm back (it is key that you learn to watch the positioning of the tank to differentiate between a paw swipe and a full body spin. However due to lag factors, this is not always going to be possible, so don't get too frustrated if it's hard to tell whether he's going to swipe or spin.)

If you see the dragon move his tail back to swing it, you need to move AWAY from the Dragon TOWARDS his head if that makes sense (in other words, you need to be backpedaling and moving towards the front of his body when he pulls his tail back). This will keep you out of the range of his tail swipe.

Using these techniques (barring lag-related problems -- if you or the server drops the wrong packet at the wrong time, you're gonna get hit by one of his attacks, period) it is possible to melee DPS the dragon without EVER taking damage or being hit by his melee attacks IF you are not the focus of the dragon's aggro.


Tips for a melee holding the dragon's aggro:

It is still essential that you move CONTINUOUSLY while holding the dragon's aggro. If you try to stand still and facetank him, you're most likely going to die. If you try to kite him, you'll probably live longer, but the rest of the raid party's melees are likely going to be unable to effectively dps him. The trick is to move in a half-circle or full circle at ALL times. This will keep him in place while keeping you out of his attacks' red zone. If he pulls his paw back to swipe, you need to IMMEDIATELY be moving OUT AND AROUND his body, ending your arc to stand directly under his tail. Whether he spins or swipes, you will avoid damage as long as you move outward from him at the beginning of his animation. Then as long as you end in a position behind him, and are still the primary target of his aggro, he will delay a few moments in an effort to turn around and face you. THIS IS THE KEY -- no matter what attack he is using you NEED to position yourself in a manner that will cause the dragon to turn and face you after the attack. If you stand still and never make him change positions, he will attack CONTINUOUSLY causing much higher overall damage to the other melees who fail to avoid his attacks and causing the healers to have to spam heals to keep people alive.

If you do not have spring attack and it is causing you to miss too often, at the very least learn the technique of standing still for a split second before swinging and then IMMEDIATELY beginning movement again (not two swings, not three swings, not drink a potion, just STOP, SWING, MOVE), or more ideally, acquire the Spring Attack feat or swap some of your gear to earn 4 more attack bonus so you can hit the dragon effectively and keep hate.


For EVERYONE but the tank, the sweet spot is on the dragon's side, that's where you want to be, so you can be prepared to avoid in either dircetion based on whether he swings his paws or his tail.

Pretend this is a top-down view of the dragon, you need to be always thinking about positioning yourself in a manner so that when his attack animation ends, you are standing where it says HERE:

\              /
  \   HERE   /
O-|||||||||------------------
  /   HERE   \ 
/              \

His frontal paw swipes will be completely ineffective as long as this is where you are standing, and you can be easily prepared to move away from him or towards the front of his body if he does a spin or a tail swipe.

For the tank, there is no "ideal" place to stand. You want to be in front of him but again CONTINUOUSLY moving around him so you will cause him to delay his attacks in an effort to turn and face you. It is also okay to occasionally move directly away from him occasionally if your circling ends up boxing you in a corner or against a wall. Just don't try to do this too much because if the dragon is chasing you you're making it effectively impossible for the other melees to output their dps.

As a final tip, when he flies in the air, if you are the person who he's throwing fireballs at, you need to move BACK AND FORTH in a semicircle with the correct timing (for instance, you want to keep strafing left, wait for him to stop, then suddenly start strafing right SLIGHTLY BEFORE he stops to shoot his fireball, repeating this in a back and forth motion) and you will NEVER GET HIT by a single fireball (no evasion? no problem. Just improve your footwork.)

Using these techniques you can allow your raid party to provide a significant amount of DPS to the Truthful One, cutting down both the time it takes to sliver him and the amount of damage the melees will take during close quarters combat. Both of these factors will lead to SIGNIFICANTLY reduced healer stress and potion usage during this raid.

Source: As my Lv25 Pure Monk I have 3 EE completions, 4 EH completions, and one EN completion (all PUGs except for one EE) this week using the techniques I stated above to manage the Truthful One during the last phase of the raid.

If you were talking about getting railed by his magic attacks and not his melee attacks, you're standing in the wrong place altogether as being on his side where I showed in the doodle above puts you outside the area of effect of his magic 99.99999% of the time (the sliver of a percent margin of error being due to the lag monsters that plague the DDO physics engine).


I hope this helps. I TRed last night but when I get my toon back up to 25, and anyone's interested, I can make a video detailing these techniques better than I can probably describe them in this post.

[TeacherSyn]

First and foremost DDO is a game where combat animations are key. If you are outside the area of effect of a boss's attack, the attack will not hit you, plain and simple. Any physical attack can be avoided in this fashion, and even beam or ball spells can be avoided with appropriate timing and the correct amount of distance. That being said, I think the following tip is something that people need to hear and not JUST for this raid:

***** Learn to not stand still while meleeing. ******

(...snipping for brevity)

This is GREAT information. Thanks for the detailed insight.

It's costly to add Dodge, Mobility and Spring Attack for Monks, but on two of my Monks that's received them have not looked back; they have great evasive improvements, and Spring Attack pays for itself in the EE "stick and move" attack. We Monks need that Dodge in EE, among concealment and incorporeality, with PRR as a bonus.

[SealedInSong]

First and foremost DDO is a game where combat animations are key. If you are outside the area of effect of a boss's attack, the attack will not hit you, plain and simple. (snip...)

All of it makes sense and is explained thoroughly. Well done.

[Kamode_Corebasher]

Has any EE Stalwart evasion tank tried a typical "stand in one spot head-to-head" tanking. Does anyone have experiences from that perspective....again, of a Stalwart evasion tank built for EE?

Purgatorii, great information! Looks like this would be the solution for an evasion tank with low AC and low PRR.

For the tank, there is no "ideal" place to stand. You want to be in front of him but again CONTINUOUSLY moving around him so you will cause him to delay his attacks in an effort to turn and face you. It is also okay to occasionally move directly away from him occasionally if your circling ends up boxing you in a corner or against a wall. Just don't try to do this too much because if the dragon is chasing you you're making it effectively impossible for the other melees to output their dps.

As a final tip, when he flies in the air, if you are the person who he's throwing fireballs at, you need to move BACK AND FORTH in a semicircle with the correct timing (for instance, you want to keep strafing left, wait for him to stop, then suddenly start strafing right SLIGHTLY BEFORE he stops to shoot his fireball, repeating this in a back and forth motion) and you will NEVER GET HIT by a single fireball (no evasion? no problem. Just improve your footwork.)

Using these techniques you can allow your raid party to provide a significant amount of DPS to the Truthful One, cutting down both the time it takes to sliver him and the amount of damage the melees will take during close quarters combat. Both of these factors will lead to SIGNIFICANTLY reduced healer stress and potion usage during this raid.

Source: As my Lv25 Pure Monk I have 3 EE completions, 4 EH completions, and one EN completion (all PUGs except for one EE) this week using the techniques I stated above to manage the Truthful One during the last phase of the raid.

If you were talking about getting railed by his magic attacks and not his melee attacks, you're standing in the wrong place altogether as being on his side where I showed in the doodle above puts you outside the area of effect of his magic 99.99999% of the time (the sliver of a percent margin of error being due to the lag monsters that plague the DDO physics engine).

[Shade]

We killed him toe to toe just standing still on our EE run just fine. Didn't even have a stalwart along.

I had him for the first 60% health or so, which was a very long time since we had limited dps at that point (out of rage, no weaken undead).

But yea I got tired, let godmode lapse and um he crit me for 1100, about as many hp as I had at that time.

Paladin took over and was fine for the rest of the fight. He had a lot higher fort, bit more prr, and similar hp.

Dont really believe in the above advice of constantly moving. seems a bad strategy. Because if you simply let him knock you into a corner, he will only do his weaker attacks as long as your completely stationary, plus when he flys up, his fireballs cant hit you if your right by a wall.. And yea really no room to move anyways when backed up like that. I mean you might take less dmg, perhaps, but your also slowing down the raid doing it, dont see the point.

Also makes it easier for dps to stay steady and the arcanes to maintain aoes on him like FW/Cloudkill.

Though yea by just fine I mean: Burning through a ton of heal scrolls.. Which a ranged tank could do it with probably zero healing. Broken AI is Broken.

[Cheezburgerz]

EE Truthful One is a ranged game.

[scoobmx]

the raid is best done through kiting. you could melee but you're risking death and spawning trash mobs when you die.

[Kamode_Corebasher]

the raid is best done through kiting. you could melee but you're risking death and spawning trash mobs when you die.

I really didn't like my first attempt at an EE run. It was in a "Ranged game" or "kiting" group, and I was one of two healers and it didn't go all that well for many of the reasons stated by Shade above. To clarify, the whole group was self-sufficient and decent players, a guild run opened their last few spots. but when kitting (for example the electric dragon who can push out ~800-1000 dmg per strike), it makes it hard for the healers to get into any rhythem when a drive-by dragon kills three members at a whack, or a healer gets whacked and the other healer has to divy time between two main dps groups, or when there's 4 members alive, and one healer is running around the map healing while the others are kiting to buy time for the party to reassemble, but that running around places the healer in the way for the crazy-assed lightning dragon and hit for another ~900 (I need to gear my healer for this!!!!). According to the group, this was a bad run and they've had success with this style in the past, but for now my thoughts are "Stable tanking has GOT to be better!" and quicker!!!

So anyhow, my ee evasion tank is a few days from being ready to run it (reslotting augments, so half naked), and I'm wanting to push the stationary tank philosophy (split off each pair, one tank for dragon and the giant either mobbed or tanked or ranged), but thought I'd come here first and see if its not already a known fact that it will fail. Looks like it should work.

[TeacherSyn]

Has any EE Stalwart evasion tank tried a typical "stand in one spot head-to-head" tanking. Does anyone have experiences from that perspective....again, of a Stalwart evasion tank built for EE?

Purgatorii, great information! Looks like this would be the solution for an evasion tank with low AC and low PRR.

Better: Shadowdancers in Shadow Form and Monks with Grandmaster of Flowers's Ubiquity abilities can literally phase through that dragon by tumbling, striking, and tumbling again. Works great once you get a rhythm.

[Nitesco]

no weaken undead

Good point, make sure one of the non-tank melee's has Mournlode Chain/Docent to debuff its fortification.

Edit: Also comes on Bow of the Silver Flame and Silver Slinger now, which would be better options.

[maddmatt70]

I disagree having a real high evasion tank to evade all those spells/breath weapons the ee truthful one throws is actually best to mitigate damage. Rather then just another barbarian which quite frankly certainly sucked a lot more then just heal scrolls and instead used other resources not taht an evasion tank would mean the healers would not use resources either.

Melee tank means alot more resources on ee just can not really see something that would reduce the resources for a melee tank, but a ranged character kiting or a bunch of ranged in there is pretty boring even if you are one of the ranged and means you do not get your melee a shot at loot for that matter.

[sirgog]

Experimented with tanking him and found that an improved evasion, medium PRR, medium to high HP toon was just better at mitigating his spike damage output than a non-evasion, max PRR, max HP toon.

[CaptainPurge]

What is the best weapon to use vs EH and EE dracolich? Tier 3 Hewer doesn't bypass his DR, but mournblade maul does. Something like blunt+good but I don't know what the DR number is on either difficulty, has anyone found that out yet? Would like to put together the best 2-hander vs the Dragon Lich!

[sirgog]

What is the best weapon to use vs EH and EE dracolich? Tier 3 Hewer doesn't bypass his DR, but mournblade maul does. Something like blunt+good but I don't know what the DR number is on either difficulty, has anyone found that out yet? Would like to put together the best 2-hander vs the Dragon Lich!

Nothing is even really close to a triple positive weapon.

[Bacab]

Experimented with tanking him and found that an improved evasion, medium PRR, medium to high HP toon was just better at mitigating his spike damage output than a non-evasion, max PRR, max HP toon.

What causes the spike dmg?

His breath?

Or a hard crit on a melee attack?

I always have a ton of absorption on my Cleric, but have not done this raid on EE yet. I am comfortable to try now though.

Have now solo healed a Hard PUG. I am thinking a run with 2 Divines an good DPS would be doable now (as in my skill level for the raid is now up to par).

I just want to make sure I don't get one shotted...
*So is it a physical dmg thing or a magic dmg thing.

BTW it seems he does fire damage breath. Does that ever change?

Also kinda related...I recommend a FVS not having their Archon out for this particular fight to avoid aggro or accidentally killing a prepped Dragon/Giant.

[Bacab]

Nothing is even really close to a triple positive weapon.

Quick little bit of advice on that...

If you do not have 30% Healing amp Slotted...

Holy, Good Burst, 30% Healing AMP is IMHO the best Triple Pos Melee Weapon. It is great for TRing also.

But to be truthful, if you are a melee and you don't have 30% healing amp slotted...you better be a Juggernaut or to be honest, you probably are not ready for EE FoT.

[CaptainPurge]

Nothing is even really close to a triple positive weapon.

Didn't even think about GS. And to qualify, something like at least 20/blunt like Abbot. Triple pos maul coming right up.

[CaptainPurge]

Do we know his fortification on all difficulties?
Is it 100% across the board or > 100%?

[Keybreaker]

We killed him toe to toe just standing still on our EE run just fine [snip]
Though yea by just fine I mean: Burning through a ton of heal scrolls.. Which a ranged tank could do it with probably zero healing. Broken AI is Broken.

I play mostly melee toons, and I was the only melee on our EE FoT completion on the day of live release. Firstly, why is it broken that an Epic Undead Dragon's mouth isn't something you should stand and stare into like a training dummy? From any perspective: tactical or roleplaying, if you could range, why wouldn't you???

Also, RANGED TANKING: I noticed since the Poisoned Well quest that no matter how much hate a ranged caster DOT'er or archer has on the dragon, if a melee moves withing melee range, the green dragon will switch aggro to the melee it can it. This seems like smart AI to me (as opposed to the old AI, where you could perch the original VON1, crit-fish a firewall, bake... then melee could come in and beat down with impunity since the mobs never switch aggro off the caster they couldn't reach).

If you mean KITE-TANKING: Why does this mean BROKEN? It's another strategy. A legitimate strategy. I is risky and requires a great build and high player skill to execute and coordinate.

What's broken is to expect the same tactic to work in every raid in every MMO: the oppressive "holy trinity" (TANK, healer, dps). BTW, on that first run of ours, where we only had a party of 11 and only 1 player had ever done the raid before (on Lam), we completed in our first attempt "learning run" in about 45min and about 87 pots (mostly for DOTs, not heals), as much or less than a brute force completion. (http://forums.ddo.com/showpost.php?p...05&postcount=1) We do it a lot more efficiently now and are still experimenting with different tactics. Weird right? We are experimenting and not assuming one old way of thinking is the best way; and if it's hard or doesn't work, concluding the design MUST BE BROKEN.

The Devs have created an excellent new raid that's fresh and fast! I won't be sad if I never see (or hear) Ana again... Also, don't always assume first that the AI is broken... maybe it's not the "artificial" intelligence that's broken.

I realize I've done a very dangerous thing here. You can't reason with a Frenzied Spartan. The last guy who tried to reason with a Frenzied Spartan was yelled at and thrown down a well... But I was told that sarcasm was against the forum rules.